2 4 1
by Shiggity Shwa
Summary: The sequel to Bring it all Back-Six weeks into their new lives, old habits are running hard for Cameron and Vala. When a real chance to find the gate address to the clava thessara infnitas comes at a cost, what is worth the sacrifice? A little darker in tone than it's predecessor, but still runs true to character. Has established Cam x Vala and hints of Daniel x Vala
1. For the Money

_A/N: Welcome to the long-awaited sequel to Bring it all Back. As summary suggests, this story will be a little darker in tone and deal with gender roles, PTSD, previous traumas, and memory loss._ _Later chapters will deal with multiple character deaths._ _If any of these subjects are upsetting to you, perhaps it's best if you skip the story.  
Also I'm trying to come up with a name for the series, as there will be a third installment to finish it up. If you have any suggestions please let me know. _

2 4 1

Chapter 1

One for the Money

This is starting to get sticky.

There are rules to follow, rules unspoken among all free agents and their business contractors and although she is still relearning how to stand on her legs as an agent in a post-Ori, post Lucien Alliance galaxy, she still remembers the rules perfectly. Least of all, the contract, a verbal one is affirmation enough of course, basically meaning she brings the goods, usually some form of pilfered Ancient artifact, in exchange for the currency agreed upon, half going into her pocket and another to a savings account she procured years before Qetesh hijacked her body.

"I held up my end of the bargain, Konroy." They're in the backroom of a bar, hidden behind a cabinet full of half empty liquor bottles meant only as a ploy. Her gun is holstered, but her hands linger near her hips, ready to snatch it at any moment. "I romped through that noxious swamp and vomited enough for an entire year to retrieve this chalice for you. If the businessman in you wants to back out of the deal, the gentleman in you had better see it through to the end."

He answers in a chuckle, his wide mouth pulling into a devious, high-cornered grin as his stark black eyebrows slant downwards, unmoved by her threats. He pours an incarnadine wine from a carafe into a mug. "Would you care for any?"

"No, I would care for my currency." Crosses her arms the way she's seen Cameron do hundreds of times before, when he does what he considers his intimidating stance, with wide set legs and a scowly face.

She's not the muscle. Muscle was the muscle. She's not the brains, or the brawn, or the multilingual polyglot. Only relies on three things to get her through these transactions: seduction, scheming and blind luck.

Konroy gulps back a mouthful of the wine, which is a lot because he has a rather large mouth, almost like a crater on the middle of his face. His black hair is greased back, and he looks like a gangster from one of the movies about the American mob that Cameron is so intent on making her watch. "The thing is Vala, we sort of sent you out there to die." His lips smack together as he sets the mug back down on the large wood slatted table. "Didn't really expect to have to pay you."

Checks her watch and she's late.

She's late again and if she doesn't get back home, he's going to know. "While this is all exceedingly interesting, I don't have the slightest care as to why you want me dead, or why you thought a swamp that smelled like wet excretions would stop me. I got you your chalice and I expect my payment."

He chuckles again, swiveling to the front of the table and leaning back in against the edge. "The payment isn't going to happen. But perhaps we can strike a deal."

"And perhaps I'll take my wares and be on my way."

But it's never that easy, never goes that easy and with a snap of his fingers, two bulky men squish through the doorway, their bodies strapped with muscles, their eyes almost hidden in the mask-like hard skin on their faces. Konroy raises his hand in gesture. "And perhaps again, you'll reconsider my offer."

Doesn't need to hear his offer to know what it is and were she younger, and unattached, she would hear him out, spend the night with him, rob him blindly in the morning and be on her merry way. But she is beyond using her body to barter at the moment, being that it's currently not just her body, and she's already late for whatever fantastic dinner Cameron's concocted.

She hopes it's hamburgers.

In a fluid motion she twists and shoots behind her, taking out both henchmen in less than a blink of an eye. They topple over like the coniferous trees behind their home, the kind they use for firewood on nights only growing colder.

Gun still in hand, finger on the trigger, she aims back at Konroy, the smug expression wiped entirely from his face, now refilled with utter shock and a bit of fear.

Raises his hands, slowly spreading back across the table. "We can talk about—"

But her walkie goes off, and there's only ever one person who calls her. The button pulsates green telling her to pick up and she groans, switching her gun to her less dominate, but equally lethal, hand and rips the walkie from her belt. Before she engages it, she turns back to Konroy. "You'd better keep quiet."

He nods repeatedly, the extra skin on his neck rippling as he dares not move from the table. With a sigh and a repressed need to roll her eyes, she depresses the button with her thumb and brings the device to her mouth. Washes the threat, the coarse intimidation, from her face and lights up. "Hello Darling."

"Vala, where are you? Dinner's getting cold."

"I just got a bit wrapped up." It's not a whole lie, but then why does she feel so bad about carrying on the charade. "I should be home soon."

"How soon?"

"Within the hour."

"The hour." He sounds a bit upset as he sighs through the static. "Why would it take you an—Wait, please tell me you're not freelancing."

Konroy jerks to the left, testing her ability to multitask, and her finger presses down against the trigger landing a radiating blast in his right shoulder. Normally, she would be more prudent with the use of her gun, but the things she's experienced in the last year have taught her to fire first and demand answers later. They're untethered from the SGC, from their friends who probably continued on in their lives after their departure and now she doesn't have to answer to any General, or any United States government department.

"You're out on a goddamn contract." Okay, so she has to answer to one man, and it's not entirely answering in an act of subordination, more like collaborating and sharing information with.

Her expression falls from softened, to one of confusion as her lies weave into a bigger tapestry. "I have no idea what you're talking about."

Even Konroy, who has his left hand smashed into his right shoulder to stem the bleeding, narrows his eyes at her poor ability to lie.

When she brought up the idea of them roaming the universe as free agents, he immediately refused her because they'd made enough enemies working for the SGC, they'd lived too dangerously through the SGC, and now was their time to retire and live in a modest two-bedroom farmhouse an hour from the nearest major city. He stays at home and farms and crafts with his large glasses and she couldn't love him more.

But it's boring, having no television, no internet. It's boring and technophobic and all together backwards. The universe has expanded and evolved enough that she could simply hack accounts and transfer money to them, again an idea vetoed by him.

Despite how adorable he looks in his farmer overalls and his straw hat, his fields are bare and don't pay the bills. They don't pay any fraction of any bill.

Konroy is starting to go white, and she rolls her eyes because honestly, if she had made this deal with a woman, she would have been home eating her second hamburger by now. With a grunt she reaches behind the bar at the side of the room, retrieving a white towel and tosses it to him to place over his wound as Cameron finishes up his verbal panic.

"I can't believe you're doing this. Again. Again after we just talked about—"

"Look, I've got to go Darling, but I love you and I'll see you shortly."

"Just—just get back here safe and soon." Barely gets the words out before she disconnects, hooking the walkie back onto her belt and turning her attention back to Konroy.

Gun drawn, she points it at him again, this time aiming lower than his shoulder. "I'm missing an important family dinner and would greatly appreciate my currency now."

He's piled against the table leg and breathing very heavily. "The briefcase at the end of the bar."

Keeps her eyes trained on him as she backs towards the bar and the briefcase which she spins towards her. Uses a fingernail to run along the seam and when it doesn't snag on any unruly boobytraps, she cracks the case open, checking the money is present, and snaps it shut.

Without a sound, she steps to where she abandoned the artifact he requested, a bejeweled golden chalice which is more gaudy than anything and much to sparkly for her taste, but it does have the pretty though.

He only sneers at her while she tosses it into his lap. "I guess the rumors about you were true."

"Oh, they all probably will be eventually." Crouches before him the best she can, resting on the balls of her feet. Her stomach, growing more pronounced each day smooshes into her thighs and a bit against her chest. A sudden flush of heat washes over her, causes her mouth to dry. Swallows harshly and ignores the wavering before her eyes, her now unsteady footing. "What are they saying about me?"

"That you've gone—"

Vomits at the base of his shoes, vomits nearly as much as she did in the noxious gases of the swamp, the smell of hot garbage and bodily functions eroding her stomach lining. She heaves again spitting up nothing more than stomach acid.

"Ugh." Konroy tosses his head to the side, his tongue hanging out a bit like an animal imprisoned in a hot vehicle. "Domestic. They'd said you'd gone domestic."

Doesn't understand the meaning of his words until she composes herself on two feet and uses the arm of her brown leather jacket to rub the remnants of vomit from her mouth. "I have not gone domestic," argues with false offense.

She has gone a bit domestic and would rather sit on the sofa, cuddling with Cameron while he strokes her tummy, than be out on the town or out on a job. But she cannot go full domestic because every time she tries, they take it away from her.

Pointing a finger at the pile of vomit she's left, she explains, "that's from the swamp you sent me to."

That's not entirely true either because she's fairly certain that this child sides with Cameron on ruling whether or not she should go out on contracts. When she even attempts to leave the property, they flutter around inside her more, cause more nausea, dizziness, and of course nonstop vomiting.

Shakes her head clearing it of domestic thoughts and worries, instead allowing occupational concerns to filter through. Has to make it to the gate without getting attacked carrying a large portion of money.

"Enjoy your chalice." Mumbles at the door, suddenly hungry and simultaneously full of energy, excited for the gauntlet of people between the bar and the gate who could possibly attack her. But she pauses in the doorway, and speaks to a now slightly unconscious Konroy, "also if you ever need another item pilfered, feel free to contact me." Ducks out, then ducks back in adding, "if you're willing to pay."

* * *

Burgers. She wants burgers. Needs burgers. Bounces around the kitchen, a charming and petite afterthought added on to the living room, lifting lids and checking within pots. He has some sort of stew cooking probably to simmer overnight for dinner tomorrow. Doesn't have any jobs lined up for tomorrow, instead taking it as a rest day, especially after dealing with the swamp.

The bathroom door creaks open and he exits in a sheath of mist with a towel draped around his shoulders. Does a double take when he notices her bounding around the kitchen, distracting him from dropping his laundry into the hamper, something he does regularly now thanks to her. "You made it back in one piece." His hand blankets the side of her neck and his lips press into her temple. She closes her eyes reveling in the closeness, the calmness they share despite being marooned from everyone they care about. Trying to forget about the sacrifices they both made to be here.

He makes a noise in the back of his throat, disengaging from her. "Don't take this the wrong way, but you smell like puke."

"Yes." Purses her lips, drifting back to the stove and the delicious smelling food, then to the fridge to search for ketchup. It's not exactly ketchup but a tomato paste she's been saturating in sugar trying to recreate the flavor. "I may have been sick a few times."

"Define a few."

She finished off the ketchup in the fridge this morning with the eggs Cameron tries to feed her in lieu of the sugar-coated cocoa wheat puffs she eats straight out of the box. "About half a dozen."

"Dammit, Vala—" he's gone from trailing her around the small idea of a kitchen, to chasing her as she pushes the dishes he used in the meal preparation off the counter and into the sink. "This has got to stop."

Although she understands his attitude, his innate desire to keep her safe, how he boasts about her pre-stage waddle and about how her balance center has shifted, how involved with this child he is without having any connection to it but through her. She will not just sit in this farmhouse for the next twenty weeks and wait for this child to be born while hoping for no foul interruptions. "Everything cannot stop because I'm pregnant."

"You were off active duty before we left Earth—"

Zips by him, solid like a statue with a cross expression and his hands on his hips. Next time she needs to remember to keep her chin up more when she imitates him. "Yes, and we left Earth because the SGC became a danger to us—"

"To you. It specifically became a danger to you and the baby."

Stops rummaging through a cupboard that contains little more than a few gathered spices and some tea. "Is that why you're upset? Do you miss Earth?"

She'll gladly go back as long as it's not under the vice of his military. Wouldn't mind staying with his parents, or finding another country home, perhaps on another continent, definitely one with television and internet.

The harsh edges round out of his voice and he sighs, bungled hands relaxing flat against the wooden countertops. "I'm upset because you keep going out as a—" he chooses his words carefully "—free agent, and it's dangerous."

Reaches towards the highest shelf in the cupboard above the stove, her fingers grazing the jar of tomato preserves this child is driving her mad for. "We need a way to procure funds—"

"I thought you had tons of money stashed—"

"Yes, Darling." Is growing tired, metaphorically over the same old argument they always have when she returns from being a free agent, and physically from hunger, from the strain of retrieving the chalice today. The memory of the swamp still sends her stomach into flips. "For emergencies."

"Starting over is an emergency."

"No." Shakes her head marching away from him, desperately trying to keep the waddle out of her step as he frequently states how cute it is, and retrieves a chair from the small kitchen table, pushing it back to the stove. "One of us falling ill or being injured and needing immediate medical attention is an emergency. Being stranded in on a new planet with no food, or water, or shelter is an emergency. Once the baby comes and I'm unable to complete assignments as a free agent for a few weeks—"

"A few weeks, Vala are you gotta be kidding me." Stomps away from her in frustration as she lines her rickety chair up with the stove.

Rolls her eyes, even though he can't see her, and strains, shifting her knees onto the chair as it trembles beneath her. "I know it's ugly, but it's true. We need to procure funds now so that after—"

"And what am I supposed to do this whole time? Just be a trophy husban—Vala." Turns back to her just as she begins to stand on the chair, and it wobbling precariously underneath her. His stride is stern but with intent as he scoops her up while she reaches for the preserves, then sets her on her feet away from the stove. With a hard, stable hand on each of her shoulders, he glares her down. "What the hell is wrong with you?"

And perhaps if he were any other man, she would feel threatened, but he is hers, as she is his, and she knows his anger stems from pent up frustration.

With innocent and wide eyes, she taps a finger gently to the cupboard. "The ketchup is on the top shelf."

"Then ask me to get it for you."

"I'm perfectly capable of—"

"No. You're not." Throws his hands up again as he turns to retreat from her, then, possibly remembering how she clambered up onto the chair the last time his eyes left her, he flips back towards her, his words mangled against his knuckles. "There's certain things you shouldn't be doing right now."

"When I was in Ver Isca—"

"Honey, you've got to stop comparing." Drops his balled hand from his face, the fingers unfurling and melting around her cheek. "I don't need you to make bread, or stew, or cook, or act as a double agent for the Ori. I don't want you to."

"What do you want then?"

"I want you and the baby to be safe and healthy. I want you to be happy."

"And?"

"And I want you to stop freelancing—at least for the next few months." Bows his head to hers, and in his evacuated breath she draws hers in.

"I just want us to be prepared."

"I know you do." He sways her in a soft circle, hands falling to find her hips and missing them as they've begun their decent beneath her bump. Settles on rubbing her stomach and a grin blooms on his face. "But every time you leave, you take everyone with you."

Allows a wry smile on her face at his sentiment. The emotions hit her harder in hunger, in fatigue, and if he didn't bury his face against her neck, it's very likely she would have cried. Instead she strokes a hand through his hair. "Oh, you're that attached?"

"I'm that attached." Words wet against her skin. The warmth of his body comforting, relaxing, and the disruption in her stomach from the swamp settles until only hunger is palpable.

Releases her hold on him enough so he can crane his head back. "Then plate up the food, Darling, because your child is hungry."

"Right. Shit. Sorry." All spoken as a single word and without a second thought he reaches upwards, easily handling the jar of preserves and setting it on the counter. "I made extras just in—"

She pushes the chair back towards the table, slotting it into place, failing to hear any of his words as an odd sensation falls over her. Instinctively, her hand falls to the dip of her stomach, and her nose crinkles, trying to understand the sensation.

"Honey?" Over her shoulder, he's standing at the oven, thick chicken patterned mittens on his hands and a plate of his burgers stacked high on the counter. "You okay?"

"I feel odd."

He slams the oven door shut. Fighting to get the restraints of the mittens off his hands. "How?"

"I don't know how."

"Like you're going to faint? Like you're going to puke? Like—"

Familiarity in the feeling, the humming, the bustling of prickles over her skin as if her entire body is being agitated. Felt it on the Ori vessel, but after giving birth, with Daniel, when—

"Cameron come quickly," beckons him with open arms, that she might be able to sneak him aboard, as Daniel did once for her.

He runs, but it's fruitless, her skin already white and aglow and before his hands reach her, she shimmers out of their kitchen, yellow and bright in the early evening, and into the gray, bleak interior of an unknown ship.


	2. For the Show

2 4 1

Chapter 2

For the Show

"Vala!" He shouts for her even though he knows she's long gone.

"No. No. No. No." Allowed a grace period of a few seconds for whoever wrongfully beamed her out of her own goddamn house to put her back, then runs to the back closet. "No. No. No. No."

Who would want her?

She's five months pregnant, not exactly as lithe as she used to be, though he still has no complaints. She's gorgeous and vibrant and when she's not throwing more food than she's ever put into her or falling into a coma-level of sleep where her snoring—because she's congested, because this planet makes her congested—is so loud it rattles the inside of his ears, she's exactly like her old self. Except she's starting to look like she's smuggling a basketball everywhere.

"Shit." It's probably someone she did a contract for coming for retaliation and the thought of how many ways—on how many levels—they can retaliate makes him nauseous.

They worked so hard to cover their asses. Enough gate jumps to make them both physically sick several times over. Hopped to a planet, vomited, and dialed out. Just that over twenty times until they finally got back to Thea without a breadcrumb trail.

They stayed indoors for almost a week, brainstorming a game plan, talked about what they wanted to do and how they could do it. Through the calmness and cooing of 'love yous' and his hands brushing through her hair while she sighed heavily and happily against his chest, he told her he wanted to plant something. Wanted to be rid of gates and ships and zats, wanted no technology at all despite Thea having an advancement level similar to Earth's. Indoor plumbing is great, satellite tv not that much.

Just her and him and a bushel full of kids working the land.

Digs through the contents of the closet where he sets his rubber boots and hangs his coat, and she just tosses everything out and into the kitchen. She's so messy and—God he loves her and if anything happens to her or their baby he's gonna—"Fuck."

Finds what he's looking for, a gun like a shotgun, that he bought under the pretense of shooting things like coyotes away from the fields where he hasn't even begun to grow crops, and the pitiful coop where he plans to get this planet's version of poultry. He hasn't worked himself up to it yet because he misses Earth and on times when he's alone, he just thinks of gating back to see his folks and let them know he's okay.

Really the gun is for protecting her, protecting his family, and when he brought it into the house—that she bought flat out and could stand to do several more times, so again, why the hell does she even need to be going on—she rolled her eyes at him and left the room.

Really has no fucking clue what he's doing, his hands shaking as he inserts the cartridges, but going to the front lawn and shooting blindly up into the sky is the only attack he has.

Stomps back across the kitchen, through the living room, tracking mud from the fields he was working in earlier—while she was out in some swamp puking her guts out for their only income—across the house and out onto the front porch. Listens for the angry creak of the stairs, but it's drowned out by the sound of a cloaked ship.

Still draws the gun, tracing the sky for what he knows is there. Closes an eye, tracking through the sight, shallows his breathing, and watches the air ripple around the heat from the ship's exhaust.

It's not until the dust clouds into the air that he realizes the ship is landing, not speeding away into the atmosphere as he assumed it would. Keeping his aim, his gun ready, the overwhelming sound of an engine and the harsh landing give him somewhere to focus.

"Baby please tell me you knocked them on their asses and stole the ship back."

There's a hiss as the door disengages, and the immediate sound of her voice and he relaxes, lets out the breath he was holding in, and flicks the safety on, gun barrel facing down to the porch. When she appears from nothing, the ship still cloaked, her hand rubbing the top of her stomach, he full out drops the gun and takes off towards her.

Her combat boots clomp down the invisible, but obviously metallic stairs and she turns berating whoever else was in the ship.

"If you idiots ever try something like this again, if I don't mangle you first, Cameron will—Darling, we're fine—"

Tries to comfort him, but he doesn't hear, just grabs her and holds her because it could have been Athena, this whole thing could have happened with Athena as the ringleader and what would he do? Doesn't have the skill to get her back, the galactic knowhow. Can't go back to SGC because they sort of burned all those bridges—or so he thought.

Behind her Jackson followed by another Jackson start to file out of the ship.

"You're okay?"

"Yes."

Pulls back, stares in her eyes for any of her tells, and replaces her hand with his atop her stomach. This time his voice is tenser. "You're okay?"

Cold hand caresses his cheek and she grins at him, rubbing her nose off his. "We're fine."

She still smells like vomit, and he's dizzy from the instant relief of having her back, the turmoil of how to get her replaced with the turmoil of how to protect her when she can just get beamed out of the goddamn house by any ship with Asgardian technology.

"I guess the next time—"

"—we'll just land the ship—"

"—in your front yard—"

"—because that'll go over well."

Releases her and slams the first Jackson he can grab into the side of the still invisible ship, his hand all twisted up in his perfect black BDU shirt. "You just beam her up?"

"Mitchell."

"Mitchell!"

"Cameron—"

"No Vala, we don't know what kind of effects that technology can have on—" Finds his grip relaxing, and then tightens it, holding this Jackson still. The other stands idle on the stairs, floating above them, ascending again. "They know you're pregnant."

"We also knew—" The one under his hands grunts out.

The one ascending finishes, "—that it wouldn't hurt her."

"Or the baby?" Asks One who sort of gaks out a reply.

Then he turns to Two, who answers, "or the baby."

Should probably let his hand drop at this point, let One go, but the rage, the uselessness he felt, is so much more than when he was left on base and she was out waltzing around the universe.

"Cameron." Her voice is soft and floats from behind him, calming him, cooling him. She cups her hand around his shoulder tugging a bit. "Your child is famished."

Her current way of suggesting he make her up a plate of food. Likes to make him guess what she wants and so far he's actually doing pretty good at it, mostly because when they go into the city on weekend trips to stock up on groceries, he pays attention to what she buys and tries to cook what he can from them.

"Let's get you a burger."

"Just one?" Her eyebrows raise in surprise and she halts her walking to the kitchen.

Slides his arm around her waist, "as many as you want, Princess."

"You know we actually came here for a reason." Two thumps down the stairs, giving a quick glance back to One, who's still trying to catch a bit of breath—which he thinks is a ploy for sympathy, he could have—should have—been a lot rougher.

"You mean your sole intention wasn't to momentarily kidnap me to disrupt the lovely calm we're trying to cultivate in our pleasant home?" Her words hit harder than he even could. He chuckles, proud and still partly out of relief, and hugs her side to him tighter as he feels the slight waddle of her walk.

"We came here to discuss—"

"Not now." Throws his hand up into the air to stop any conversation they plan on having on his front lawn, as the sun sets, and the night bugs chirp up. But then he waves them towards the house. "Now is family dinner time."

* * *

Vala packs away three and a half hamburgers, and almost polishes off the ketchup preserves they let stew for an entire day before jarring. He offers to do the cleaning up while she has a shower, but then the Jacksons clear their throats and it becomes clear that they weren't just in the neighborhood to stop by for a barbeque.

Now, sitting beside her on the couch facing two Jacksons, each taking up a gaudy floral armchair she picked up at a second-hand store, he doesn't know where the hell she shops, what second-hand store she goes to almost once a week, but all their furniture looks like it was taken from some French King in the sixteenth Century.

"Sam and O'Neill are on the _Odyssey_ now." Daniel Two catches them up in the lives they left behind. "He's the highest-ranking officer on board, but we all know who the crew answers to."

He doesn't have a tiny teacup for catching up parties, he doesn't have that much of an interest to hear about how Earth is doing after the way things ended—he'd rather have a clean split—he doesn't have the patience for their beating around the bush no matter how hard she's shimmying from excitement beside him on the couch. Wants to think it's because she finally got to use her tiny tea set, or because someone else has been allowed into their house, into their lives for the first time in six weeks, but he knows it's because of the excitement from their old life bleeding back in, from her yearning to put back on the BDUs and hop through the gate again.

"Why are you here?"

"Cameron." She slaps his arm with her hand, her mouth wide at his bad manners.

"No, it's been like an hour and we still don't know why the Wonder Twins are here."

"What would your mother say."

"Probably that we did a piss poor job of gate jumping if it only took them a year to find us."

"Actually," Daniel Two interjects, his tiny teacup a few inches before his face. "It only took us two days—"

"Why. Are. You. Here?"

Daniel One rolls his eyes as Daniel Two takes a sip of his tiny teacup, raising his eyes at Vala who simply shakes her head. One groans, "If it's not obvious, we're here because we need your help."

"Uh-uh." Stands from the couch, his knee jostling the refurbished garden cart she picked to use as their coffee table. There's ornate little pink flowers and vines painted into the light gray wood and why does everything have to have flowers on it now. "I'm retired. I'm done risking—"

"Actually." Daniel One interrupts, his teacup still full and probably cold by now.

There's a clack as Daniel Two sets his teacup back onto the saucer and darts his eyes towards Vala. "We're asking her."

She's caught off-guard, stretching her arms above her head mid-yawn. "Me?"

"Oh no. No." The SGC doesn't get to royally screw them, to try and separate them, to kick her off the damn planet, to do what they did and then crawl back asking for help. "Not interested."

"Cameron, Darling, they've travelled all this way, wouldn't it be at least prudent to hear them out?"

"We're retired."

"You're retired, I still have a job."

"Yeah," his voice drops to a low growl as he leans in, "and you shouldn't."

She just yawns again as he sits beside her again—an overexciting day full of physical activity, and adrenaline pumping, followed by a full stomach, there's usually three outcomes, sleeping, puking, or sex. With the Jacksons here, one of those is already off the table.

"We found more evidence of the Clava Thessara Infinitas." One is leaning forward, like the information is top secret, like he didn't spout those words once a day for almost four years.

"Well I'd hate to be the one to tell you this—" she tucks into his side with content closed eyes and nuzzles her face into his shoulder "—but I'm not your commanding officer anymore."

"Oh, we're well aware of that."

"Things have never run smoother actually."

"Great, then you might wanna hightail it before anyone follows you to what was supposed to be our very private address."

"Vala gave it to us—"

"—and as much as she wants you to think she kicked our asses on that ship—"

"—she hugged us and cried."

"All lies," she mumbles and pulls away from him, cozying up to the opposite arm of the loveseat, her feet hanging awkwardly over the edge because of her heavy boots.

He grabs one of her feet and slowly unthreads the laces, pulling the tongue and loosening the first boot off. "She do the headlock one?"

"Several times."

He chuckles and sets the first foot in his lap while he works on the laces of the second boot. "Look, where do we fall into this?"

"Long story short—"

"The information points us back to the Ancient ruins we researched four years ago."

"There was a lot of ruins, guys." Sets her boot down beside the other and holds her feet in his lap.

"The one where we got cloned."

"The Xerox ruins," she adds, her voice sounding far away, and her legs start to relax. "We can go."

"You'll have to excuse her, she's had a long day of doing stupidly dangerous things." He pauses waiting for her retort, and when she doesn't offer one, he continues, "we're not going."

She sits up with half-lidded eyes and her hair all mussed from the fabric static. "It's too late now. We can discuss this in the morning. I'm getting cleaned up and going to bed. Be a dear and help the Daniel's get set up in the guest room."

As she waddles away, she loses more balance when she's sleepy, One checks his watch. "It's 9:30."

"Jackson," groans as he collects the elaborate enameled teacups she brought out after dinner, because they don't have guests—ever. "She's making a person, let her do what she wants."

Two says nothing, only sips his tea.

"Really Mitchell, how long are you two going to stay here?" One abandons the remaining dishes on the garden cart, trailing him to the kitchen, bringing only a mildly irritated tone. "When you know you can go back to Earth."

"Shhh." His hush is harsh as his hands slam into the sink with the dirty dishes. One doesn't look intimidated, instead just rolls his eyes. A quick glance back to the washroom tells him that she's probably blissed out in the shower right now, curls of moisture wafting up from under the door. "Keep your damn voice down."

"Oh my God, you didn't even tell her, did you?" One's jaw drops and Two scurries off the couch, bringing the dishes to join the conversation.

"Damn right I didn't." Shoves his hands far into the water, that's too hot and prickling at his skin. When they breech the water again, they're red.

"Why not?" Two slips the dishes into the sink.

"Because I'm not entirely sure this isn't a huge trap to get us back there."

"Teal'c is already back—"

"—next time we com in with great news, we'll let him deliver it."

"Look, it's not just that." Finishes the last dish to the ornate little set she picked up while they were at a downtown market. Said she didn't have any use for a tea set, but that it was still so pretty, and while she was having a bout of morning sickness in the public washrooms, he scooped up the set for her.

One grabs the towel he chucks across the counter to him and plucks up a saucer. "We already told you that Woolsey was transferred back to Atlantis three weeks after you left. Landry's thinking about putting up a bulletin for you guys. When Sam found out what happened she—"

"Maybe I don't want to go back to a planet that made us leave the way we had to in the first place." He releases the water from the sink, wiping around the metallic edge and hanging the towel to dry over the faucet. "I don't think that place is safe for her."

"Is any? I mean—you both have your fair share of personal enemies, coupled in with the ones you inherited from the SGC—"

"I think what he's trying to say—" and it's a rare occurrence of Jackson death glaring himself "—is that there's safety in numbers, and numbers back at the SGC."

He strolls across the kitchen, hitting the lights, leaving only the table lamp in the living room on. He cracks the door to the spare bedroom, still not done up as a nursery, because as she put it so eloquently, there's no cute wallpapers of teddy bears.

So he painted the walls a royal purple instead.

"The ruins are completely harmless." Two revitalizes the conversation, sort of staring at the room which right now has the single bed it came with.

"If I got a dollar every time one of you told me that before a mission only to walkie me halfway through saying you had a problem." He folds the closet doors back and drags out a cot, which was also left with the house. Vala really didn't have a backstory on how she got it, or why it was for sale, and there's a feeling in him that tells him not to ask.

"The ruins have a guardian—"

Reaching up in the closet for the spare set of sheets, he rolls his eyes. "And there it is."

"Which the size of a big laptop—"

"—and happy to help us last time."

"Good then it can help you this time."

"We need her, Mitchell."

"Oh no you don't," his chuckle is dry and there's no humor in this for him at all. "We're not part of the SGC, and since when do you need her? You're both fluent in most dialects of—"

"Because of the guardian."

"I don't think I want to know."

"The guardian likes her."

"I said I didn't want to know."

"No, it likes her because she interacts with it—is kind to it."

"Then try being nicer." Tosses the final pillow from the closet shelf onto the bed and shuts the door behind him without saying another word.

He tidies the front room a bit, locking up the house for the night, brushes his teeth while doing so, which is usually a her thing, and it's usually his thing to tell her it's not cool to brush her teeth in the kitchen, but right now he can kind of see the purpose of it.

Finally, he cracks the bedroom door and the cool air from inside snakes around him, making him shiver. Tries to be as quiet as possible, but the house is still humid and the wooden door cracks and stretches when he shuts it.

Her arms fall over her head, the sheets clumping at her knees as she stretches her back out, releasing a fatigued groan. "Cameron?"

"Just me."

She beckons him with a curl of her finger and a little wicked twist in her smile—it doesn't take more than that. It never did. "I should hope so, or I'd assume one of the Daniels had a bad dream."

Rushes to the bed, half-stuck in the shirt he's trying to yank off. "If any Daniel ever crosses through that door in the middle of the night, I'm shooting to kill."

"While your macho attitude is certainly stimulating—" she prolongs the word has his hand traces her thigh, following the curve of it inwards "—it's unnecessary here. The Daniels are friends. They're harmless."

"Like a ruin guardian?" Shuffles into bed, her lips already grazing his neck. Flips to his side, then back, rolling her on top of him without warrant.

She shrieks, but his thumb traces her grin as she rolls her hips forward, over him, over his boxers which aren't going to last long. His hand slides down, drops the strings of her nightie over her shoulders.

"Why is it?" Encourages his movements with a hand cupping at the back of his head, his lips working over her collarbone and dropping. She breathes deep with a tremor in her voice. "That you are so against going to these ruins?"

He tugs the nightie down so the silk fabric pools against her stomach, and while he nuzzles, while he licks and sucks, his thumbs race up her spine working over all the muscles knotted earlier in a smelly swamp. "Because there's always an evil clone," speaks against her so his words tickle and moisten her skin, "and I don't want to find out which of them is the evil one."

* * *

When he wakes up, she's already gone, but that's the usual now. She doesn't sleep for very long anymore for any number of reasons. The difference is a little off putting where before, back on Earth, back with the SGC they would sometimes spend their entire day off in bed: order in, watch cartoons and documentaries, she might read a book while he wrote up mission reports on his laptop—she was usually the one who grew bored. Not bored—distracting.

Now she's only good for four or five hours before her back starts to hurt, or she gets nauseous, or hungry. But he has a lingering feeling that she can't sleep because she's anxious, she's scared that someone might find them here—someone not as benevolent as the Jacksons.

He's told her to wake him, but she never does.

It's a little after four in the morning, and through the wall he can hear two sets of snoring from the Jacksons that got a room for the night. It's good to know that if the baby is in the other room, they'll hear it cry, but he doesn't think he'll be letting their kid out of his sight for the first twenty or so years of their life.

He switches on the kettle for tea, he's off coffee now, and although he had a massive headache for a week straight, he feels better about it, he doesn't crash in the middle of the day anymore. The house is always eerie in the morning, especially since it's starting to cool down, a mist rolls in over the fields that he still has no idea what to do with, because he doesn't know if the dirt is acidic or basic, doesn't know how fertile it is, or how the seasons on Thea work yet, and he hates it because he's as useless as firing a shotgun off to the sky.

She's right—they're basically hemorrhaging money.

But not once has she told him to do something about it.

Yawns and tugs his sweater off the back of the bathroom door, slipping on his boots and unhinging the creaky back door. Knows exactly where she is because she's at the same spot every morning—although he usually just watches her from the back window.

She's only in her nightie, crouching at the top of the back-porch stairs with some of their table scraps set out on a little wooden floral tray. About five cats surround her, one in each color and when he steps out onto the porch with his cup of tea, she and cats get wide-eyed and freeze.

"Morning Honey." Just walks out to the hanging swing, sitting down in it with a creak as six pairs of eyes trace his movements.

"This is the first time I've fed them, I swear." A skinny black cat bops into her outstretched hand and she scratches its head.

"I can hear that thing purring from over here."

In the pause the cat's purr grows louder and it rubs against her knee in a tight spin. Her mouth skews to the side. "Her name is Josie, and she's a good cat."

"It's fine if they hang around," he chuckles because he doesn't care about the cats. "They'll probably do a good job of mousing the fields."

She scratches a tabby's chin, while the others are busy munching away at poultry giblets, and pads barefoot towards him, her breath is almost a wisp in the air, hugging herself tightly. When she plops down beside him, he opens his sweater, stretching his arms out and letting her snuggle in beside him.

"I want to help the Daniels."

"I know you do."

"I'm going to help the Daniels."

"It's too damn early in the morning for this, Vala." He can't take another round of these debates. They're not even debates anymore, more like scheduled PowerPoint presentations where she reiterates her opinion, and he restates his, and they both disagree and then just drop it.

Why did he have to like rural areas so much, why could he like islands. If they retired to live on an island she would never leave.

Bet she will always find a way to leave.

"You're upset." Not so much a question as it is a statement. She probably felt him tense up because she's going again, back into the fray, and he hates it. Wants her to be happy, but just through different ways.

"We don't owe them anything."

"The Daniels were an integral part in our escape."

"I meant the SGC."

"Well, the SGC didn't ask for my help, the Daniels did."

"As far as I'm concerned, when we left Earth, we severed all ties."

And he said something wrong because she's shifting away from him. Out if his sweater, his arms, to the opposite side of the swing. Watches her, the way her jaw clicks into place, as she shakes her head at him. "Its funny how you're so involved with the past that you can't focus on similarities in the present."

"What do you mean?"

"You're so preoccupied with keeping me safe that you're letting the big picture slip through your fingers."

Man does he ever hate it when she starts talking cryptically, like there's a master plan everyone else is in on—hell the baby might be in on it at this point—but no one bothered to fill him in. Sets his tea cup, just a plain porcelain one, on the ground and slides towards her, the swing rocking a bit. "So enlighten me."

There's another pause, filled with cats munching away to his left, and her focus disappears somewhere over the fields and into the hazy pinks and oranges of the morning. She rubs her stomach, he always wonders if it's indigestion, or the baby kicking, or just a habit now. "We need to start thinking bigger, thinking of the future."

"Okay, well, the big picture is in a few months we're going to have a kid—"

"Oh I know, believe me I know." Rolls her eyes at him, and then turns her attention away again, ignoring his advances, the underlying concern in his words. "If I were to forget it for even a moment, I'm sure you would be quick to remind me."

"Look, I know you like adventure and being on the move. It's just how you are, and I love every bit of it—" When he attempts to hug her close to him again, dropping his arm around her shoulders, he only gets a graze of her icy skin before she shrugs him off. Can't even pretend it doesn't hurt. "Honey, going out to dangerous ruins and—"

"I'm still able to help—"

"I know you are, but you don't have—"

"Then why was it so acceptable for me to be so self-sacrificing before?"

It wasn't.

Every damn time she left through the gate, once, twice, sometimes three times a week, he would get scared as hell that something would happen. The sleepless nights, the waiting, the fear of her going out and not coming back and now when she leaves, she takes the whole family with her.

But if he told her any of this, she would say she knows, and the stalemate would continue. Knows her well enough to sidestep the answer.

"It's who you are."

"It's who I have to be."

"No." The space between them on the swing is dangerous, just a chasm of disagreement. "Not anymore."

"Being pregnant, having a child, does not justify not trying to help where it's needed. To sacrifice what I can, especially for them." Rubs at her stomach, but this time stares directly at him. "To keep them safe."

"And you're just going to risk being discovered, by enemies, by Athena, hell by the SGC, for some carvings in the wall of a really old place."

"Yes, because this is a very selfish act." Her hand stills and whatever horrible things she's thinking about creep over her face, the neutral expression washed away into one of regret, pure sorrow. "No one depends on this child being born. The Ori needed Adria—and—Qetesh—Qetesh—"

"This is our kid, Vala." His hand flattens over hers, they rock a bit and he chances scooting closer. "I need this kid." With a hopeful grin he adds, "I'm selfish as hell."

Blinks and the first and only tear falls, her body loses the rigidity and her free hand rests on top of his. Wears a weak smile, one he knows is only ever for him. He loves it and he hates it because it usually means something bad is about to happen. "Then we need to help the Daniels."

"Why?"

"If they've truly found evidence of the Clava Thessara Infinitas, then we need to find it before Athena does." Tugs his hand to just below her navel and with a pinched face she stretches out her back. "Do you feel that?"

"No." Strums his fingers, just waiting for the response from within, thinks he's been waiting his whole life for it. Slides her back closer to him because she allows him to and he's always grateful for that. He opens his sweater wide again and she buries herself back inside. "Would we be able to defund Athena?"

"Not fully, but it would be the first step." Her cheek is cold against his neck and the words are almost automated from her mouth, just blank, like her expression. "We could use the capital to make mercenaries of her men or legally go after the Trust."

Shit.

Shit because she won.

"We can give them a day."

"Cameron, she has the use of a sarcophagus, she has near unlimited funds, she will not stop until—"

"Honey—" taps her lower back so she scoots away. The cats watch him with an unwavering gaze and unmoving bodies as he stands, his thigh aching in the morning cold. "—One day is more than enough time to look at some symbols on a wall. We're not going on a galactic crusade, or volunteering for any wars, or battles, or anything that can be remotely dangerous."

Offers her his hand to help her stand, hauling her up from the squeaky swing. She grins at him and uses her thumb to wipe away some tea from the corner of his mouth. "But that sounds like such fun."

"We're going to be parents." Holds her as the cats scurry down the stairs and back out into the limitless emptiness of the fields. The black one lingers, cleaning its paws. "We're done having fun for the rest of our lives."

"And yet you make it seem so appealing." Grabs his hand again, positioning it at the side, stamping to her tightly. "Did you feel that one?"

"Nothing yet, Princess."

She pouts, rewrapping her arms around his waist, resting her head back against his chest. "I just want you to share in it."

He wants to too.

They don't talk much about her pregnancy with Adria, because he wants this one to be different, to be supportive and magical and erase any lingering fears she has. "If it's anything like you kicking me in tender areas while we sleep, I think I got the gist of it."

Her mouth falls open in a mock of a gasp, in her theatric portrayal of shock, but before she can hand him a rebuttal, they both hear the morning grumbling of two pissy archaeologists who just found out there's no coffee in the house.

The backdoor swings open, hitting the chipping paint on the siding and shudders back into place, as the Jacksons, in matching pajamas, toddle out onto the porch. Two rubs at his eyes and lets out a loud yawn, while One crosses his arms.

"You're out of coffee."

"Look at my boys." Vala clasps her hands to the side, and maybe he didn't realize how much she really missed the Jacksons. They are the closest thing to family she has, he was the first person to truly believe in her—since being a God to millions of worshippers—but she looks so proud. So purely content.

"You're out of coffee," Two adds with sleepier eyes—he obviously lost the rock, paper, scissors, for the cot.

The lack of caffeine slowing their reactions, she openly embraces them again in that deadly double headlock she's perfected over the years.

"My boys," she cries against them, tightening her elbows and pulling them closers, taking turns nuzzling each of their cheeks like a momma cat.

"Vala." One wiggles his hand between their bodies and uses his palm to try and pry her off, and a few years ago he's be jealous, how she just openly embraces the Jacksons whenever given the chance, but it's taken him this long to only begin to understand the relationship.

"Oh my darlings, I'd forgotten you'd stayed the night." They're back in the chokehold and she's preening them again.

"Vala!" One is done and manages to break free of her iron hold, stumbling backwards on the rickety porch.

Two holds on for longer, not that much, but Two always was a little more concerned for her, the one who accepted her caring a little more easily.

She releases him from her hug and rubs a hand over his cheek taping a bit. "I hate your beards."

"You. Are. Out. Of. Coffee." One presses his fingers into his temple, teeth gritting, eyes wincing shut at the sunrise.

"No coffee on this planet, Sunshine." Bends and grabs the tray, still painted with the flowers she added. His thigh is beginning to ache, but he has an easier time bending now than she does, guess he's playing catch up with her for the last four years. "But I could wrangle up some breakfast if you're hungry."

"Coffee." One sort of pouts, while Vala reaches over, dusting cat hair from his shoulder.

The black cat watches him with curious eyes from the top porch step as he flings the leftover giblets into the field, then wipes his hand on his pants. "How about eggs?"

"That sounds dreadful." She tugs on the sleeve of the still mopey Jackson, and her bright grin makes him relax a bit. "Who wants sugary coated puffed cocoa crunches?"

"That sounds—"

"Really good actually—"

"I haven't had sugary cereals since—"

"I was a kid."

"No sugar cereal, Vala," he groans because she gets a rush for about ninety minutes and then falls flat on her face for three or four hours. It's not healthy. At this point he would just start to cook up hamburgers for breakfast if she would eat them. "You need—"

"Sugary coated puffed cocoa crunches." She places a finger over his lips to silent him, and his gaze falls half-lidded at her antics. They have no access to a doctor, haven't found one they trust enough—both of them would probably prefer to go back to Lam—and there's no way of knowing if she's getting all the vitamins she needs, from eight hamburgers a day and three boxes of cereal.

Two holds the door for her while One stops mid-step just behind her. "You know I think we brought coffee in the MREs."

"Excellent Darling, go retrieve it and we can have a proper breakfast."

"Hey, no coffee." By the time he grabs his tea mug they've locked the back door, which doesn't bother him that much because it's about time for his morning jog, but for added emphasis he pounds a fist on the door and shouts, "No coffee."


	3. To Get Ready

2 4 1

Chapter 3

To Get Ready

The ruins are just as they left them, a cavernous expanse running an entire mountainside in a ruddy color. There's a small clearing, much like a quad or a compound burrowed out of the thick rock leaving flat terrain on which the gate stands. The ruins don't get many visitors anymore, no longer popular as they were decades ago when the Goa'uld had an iron fist around much of the galaxy.

"Wow." Cameron's exclamation echoes as the dull, almost haunting wind howls through the area stirring up small tufts of dust. "This place looks like the Grand Canyon."

"Actually." Daniel One brushes by her, tossing his pack against a group of rocks, chiseled out and smoothed down as makeshift chairs, facing each other around a sooty firepit. "It looks more like Uluru."

"Okay?" He gives her a scrunched face, like he knew this wasn't going to be a good idea. They haven't even made it inside, he hasn't even met the guardian yet, which is where they're more than likely going to see a bit of resistance.

"Uluru, also known as Ayers Rock, is a red sandstone formation in—"

Cameron groans, tossing his head back and stomping down the stairs cut from the stone, and would probably give her more of the same face if she bothered to look back at him. Instead she watches the tiny whirlwinds spin and break at her boots, hiding a coy grin because all her boys are back together.

"Look." Cameron's bag hits the ground blasting sand in all directions, he's already favoring his bad thigh and perhaps it wasn't the smartest idea to bring him along. It's just—she's missed going on adventures with him. They don't talk about it because their conversations have become exceedingly fixated on one topic. Is she eating enough, is she eating the right thing, how is she feeling, does she have any cravings, should she be doing this, should she be doing that—the answer to both is no.

While being protected by such a caring man, one she chose to be her husband nonetheless, makes her feel loved and safe, it gets to the point where she's not even allowed to leave the house alone, where he trails her all around the farm, and when she finally does break free in the black pre-dawn still shadowing the fields, she can't fight the guilt that roils up within her because he simply just wants her to be safe.

If the discussion of adventuring did come up, before he blasted it straight down from the air with a shotgun, one he got under the guise of nipping mongrel animals from the back field, he would give her some sentimental answer about how every day with her is adventure enough. It's adorable, it truly is, but the pleasantries of freshly baked cookies, and the domesticities of clean countertops and floors offer her next to no stimulation.

She misses going out into the field, misses exploring different planets, different cultures, hijacking ships and pulling aerial stunts, knicking a few goods on the side, but most of all, misses doing it with someone who shares her same penchant for adventure. Someone who has her back, not that he wouldn't, he certainly does now, but he's hating every second of this and they've only just arrived.

She misses being part of a team.

Part of a family.

She misses how it was before she exiled herself from a planet she grew to love, sacrificing friends for the safety of their child.

His warm hand falls to the flat of her back, inching her forward. "Let's get in there so you can etch-a-sketch whichever ancient text you forgot to skim over last time and get the hell out of here."

Daniel One groans, his pacing falls into step to keep up with the other Daniel now approaching the large monolithic entrance. There are bat like creatures stuck up in the craggy rocks and they watch with little red beady eyes.

Daniel Two sets down the pack near the reference point. Not a specific reference point like saying to meet by the water fountain in the middle of the food court—a food court and mall with amenities that she misses as dearly as an old confidant—but rather the reference point for calling on the guardian of the ruins.

Before anyone can object, mainly the other Daniel, this one stands on the calling pad, his biological signature being read and registered in an eerie, unnatural hum, like the machine may print him a receipt.

Despite the feeble wind, the next gust is coarse and prickles a bit at her bare arms. Cameron slides closer to her, hugging around her waist, pressing her brown jacket tighter to her, his hand settling on the curve of her side, just under the pack which he keeps trying to steal from her. Supposes it's chivalrous, to have a husband who would do all the heavy lifting, and were this years ago, she would more than allow him to do so, but her pack contains little more than snacks and a water bottle, it's not trying in any sense of the word, and his constant need to rid her of it is becoming patronizing.

"What's that?" He whispers, nodding to the platform on which Daniel Two stands.

"Remember when we went to that hotel and I kept dinging that delightful little bell at the reception desk until they took it away from me?" They stayed for a weekend for their second anniversary. Five stars, a jacuzzi in the room, chocolate covered everything, and she remembers being very satiated and in love in every way.

"Yeah."

"This ruin's equivalent of that."

Before her answer results in many more questions, a rattling reverberates from within the mouth of the ruins, it sounds like tin cans tied to the back of a car—a joke he said they would have to make if they ever visited his parents again. She wants to, so badly does she yearn to return to Earth, but then her emotions have fled, bouncing around from gate to gate until finally settling in their farmhouse is still disorientating to her six weeks later.

Her arrest, her imprisonment, her interrogation that she's never told Cameron about, all seem like mixed up dreams. What she does remember clearly is two stuttering polyglots opening her cell and tossing her the bag she keeps in her locker for emergency missions, telling her to run, and that they would have her back.

And if anyone bothered to ever ask her, that's what she thinks family is.

Cameron angles his head away at the unpleasant sound. "What's—"

"That's Chippie."

Bursting forth from the cavern, the ruin guardian appears. He's half mechanical, half natural, a combination of intuition and innovation. The Ancients employed the device to keep the ruins running smoothly in their wake, only when they ascended, they forgot to mention it and the poor dear was running himself ragged until she and the single Daniel filled in the gaps.

While Chippie appears to be genderless, the mechanical voice he emits does have the tonal values of a male, when she asked if she may refer to him as such, he smiled and agreed. He's created primarily from rock, the same rock the ruins are etched out of, but deeper down inside the caverns, so instead of being red, he's more of a delightful brownish-gray. He's about the size of a car windshield, and has a screen set on either side directly in the middle to portray his emotions in basic Tau'ri punctuation marks. There's a rocket-like exhaust pipe sticking out from the bottom of him and puttering through the air seems to be his only form of transportation.

 _:) —#Dr. Daniel Jackson#_

The little screen face is very pleased as small puffs of smoke boil out the silver pipe while he drifts to the other Daniel.

 _:) —#And Dr. Daniel Jackson! How lovely it is to see you again#_

Cameron's arm falls slack on her for once, and when she glances up to gauge his reaction, he's wearing a very wry half-smile. "Okay, what the hell is—"

:O — _#Oh my! A new person! Who are you new person#_

Her husband's face falters while Chippie buzzes around him, as if this is some marvelous joke. With narrowed eyes he glares at her and she shoos him a step forward, Chippie bouncing back a step to compensate the movement and Cameron clears his throat. "I'm Cameron Mitchell—"

"Lieutenant Colonel Cameron Mitchell." Gathers her hands against his shoulder and rests her chin there. Still is anything but an expert in the hierarchical knowledge of the Tau'ri military, but the rank always sounds imposing.

 _:D —#Vala Mal Doran#_

Chippie brushes by her husband, wavering to a stop before her with the biggest nonexistent smile she's ever seen. "Hello Chippie, how have you been?"

 _xD —# Oh very well. I've missed you#_

"Of course you're friends with it," Cameron laughs, not sarcastic but somehow pleased, like he was this morning when he discovered she had been feeding the stray cats for the last five weeks. Saw one on the way to the garbage bin to drop off scraps, and it was just skin and bones. How could she throw away a perfectly decent meal right in front of it? A few days later another joined, then another. The little group follows her around when she needs to get away from being contained in that house. She paces through empty fields with dry and withered crops left over from the previous owners, and when she looks back, five cats cautiously stop walking. "Someone want to fill me in?"

 _:O —#How rude of me! I'm the Computer Hardware Interface Providing Proper Intelligence and Education about the ruins which could otherwise potentially be very dangerous#_

While Daniel One, looking a bit perturbed at not getting any new information taps his foot, Daniel Two leans forward and helpfully informs, "Chippie for short."

"Who named it?"

"Who do you think?"

When Cameron looks back at her she gives him a monstrous grin. He didn't get the pleasure of meeting Chippie the first time around, when the sight of them threw him into a breathless frenzy, zipping to the side and eagerly asking questions. Throughout the planets, and now galaxies, she's explored, she has never seen a machine so unfit for being a hermit.

 _:) —#I also guard and protect the ruins! So I hope you're not planning anything of malintent Lieutenant Colonel Cameron Mitchell, or I might have to kick your ass#_

"Cam's just fine." He's keeping his guard up, but still wears that delightful smile. Chippie bobs around him, still happy as ever and eager to please. Around his third pass Cameron's grin starts to fade, and her palms start to sweat. "Who taught it the swear?"

Daniel Two glances up from pulling a bottle of water from his pack. "Who do you think?"

As Cam takes another step, Chippie cuts him off, still passively content.

 _:) —#Vala Mal Doran taught me that word! If you have any questions you can ask me directly! I'm here to help#_

The back of her neck starts to grow hot, possibly from standing in the middle of a clearing absorbing the sun with a leather jacket on. However, the lie to herself lasts meager seconds as the familiar queasiness sets in.

Daniel One almost swings his pack into Chippie as he switches shoulders. "We actually came back to take another look at the Ancient writing on Sublevel A"

 _:) —#How interesting#_

"Yes." Daniel Two agrees with sterner eyebrows than she's used to seeing on him. Perhaps he's just a bit befuddled by the entire mess, even she's having a hard time following the conversation. "Can you take us there?"

 _:) —#Of course#_

She cocks her head to the side at a sudden twinge in her temple, the nausea now rising in her stomach as the Daniels keep asking for entrance to the ruins. The morning sickness this time around is like none she's experienced before. It knows no time, doesn't stick to any routine, just randomly pops in until she's vomited to the point of exhaustion and requires a nap.

"Hey." Cameron steps to her, reaching out for her as saliva gathers her in mouth. "Are you okay?"

"Now Chippie!" Daniel One throws his hands towards the cave.

"I can see why they needed to bring—" extends his hand, cupping her cheek as a familiar tingle prickles at the back of her throat. Drops his hand just as quickly, recognizing the signs. "You're on fire."

She vomits, just as she did at the tavern yesterday, heaves her entire breakfast of sugary coated puffed cocoa crunches onto the dry terrain, half-digested, bitter tasting from the lack of sugar. Heaves again and the cup of tea and orange juice are not far behind. She's bent at her knees, heaving a third time when nothing comes out, when tears gather in the corner of her eyes, and her nose starts to run from the stupid congestion she's experiencing on Thea.

Then she realizes his hand is rubbing circles on her back, and he softly talks her down as if she has a weapon pointed at her own father again. That thought rings up another bout of nausea, but there's nothing left in her stomach to remove. He helps her stand, his hands expertly scooting under her jacket, and as an extension, to her pack, grabbing both as they slid off her arms, then he tugs the holder from around her wrist and pulls her hair up, blowing on the back of her neck.

Sadly, this situation occurs roughly three to five times a day. Cameron handles it better than her, has a knack for knowing which words calm her, and what comforts she likes. He's had plenty of practice, as from not being used to Tau'ri bacteria and illnesses, she tended to run sick quite more often then he did. Part of her always liked it, the way he cares for her, reminds her of being Qetesh—but in a good way. Having someone devoted to her who wants to be. Having a pure source of renewable love that's meant only for her.

The Daniels stare in what she can only describe is horror, as they approach the firepit sitting stones with a very slow gait. His arm around her for support, but not too tightly as she needs to cool. Rubbing the back of her hand over her mouth to clear away any lingering bits, she sits on the closest stone while he kneels beside her, rummaging through her pack for the bottle of water.

Hands it to her without a word, just a sympathetic smile. Waits until she's taken a few sips before questioning, "You good?"

"Yes," almost unvoiced as she realizes she's panting.

While her momentary hyperventilation continues, his palm touches the side of her face again, and he uses the cuff of his long-sleeved shirt popping out from beneath his jacket to wipe away the wetness on her skin. "You're cooling down. Do you want to take a break?"

They just got here. Haven't even been inside the ruins yet, but she's exhausted, feels like she could curl up on one of the sun-warmed stones and have a nap like the black cat on their back-porch swing. Instead she just nods.

He nods back, picking up her jacket off the ground and dusting it off before setting it beside her in case she gets cold. He uses the rock for balance as he stands, his leg shaking with the lingering pain as he cups his hands over his mouth and announces, "we're taking a break."

"We just got here." Daniel One shouts back, his arms flying in the air.

"We could always just—" Cameron whistles, jutting this thumb backwards to the gate. When she leans her head against the side of his good thigh, his hand drops to her hair, stroking as he continues his haggling with the Daniels.

"Fine." Daniel Two probably nods, she can't tell, her eyes are closed, but knows it's him because his voice is softer. "We'll pop ahead—"

"Vala Mal Doran?"

Opens her eyes when something blots out the warmth from the sunlight, to find Chippie floating level with her face, concern evident.

 _:( —#Are you okay#_

"Fine, Chippie." Holds her head up as Cameron shuffles to take a seat beside her. Her hand pets Chippie's warm stone, and the bright green font of his face remains unchanged. "It's just morning sickness."

 _:( —#It is no longer morning#_

"I don't think the baby really cares." Cameron bottles up her water, slipping back into her bag of sugary cereal and chips, that he groans at, but really, he should have never let her pack snacks for herself if he didn't expect this. He doesn't say anything though, more than content to sit beside her, his obviously aching thigh receiving heat therapy from the stone.

 _:|— #Baby? What baby#_

She maneuvers his hand from the warm rock and guides it to where their child is adoringly punting her side. Pushes his wrist tighter to her and they both become silent, listening for a motion. When he says nothing, she raises her eyebrows at him expectantly. "Anything?"

"Nothing." Each time he sounds more disappointed and perhaps it would be more prudent to stop asking until she's further along, if only their child would stop constantly kicking her internals. Adria was hellbent on being the zealot of a religious empire, and she never kicked as a foetus once.

The Daniels, growing bored with idly standing around when they could be dissecting Ancient directions to a cache that she's still not entirely sure exists, trudge up before them. Two looks a little pale, and One squints his eyes into to the sunbeam, throwing a hand over his eyes. "You okay?"

Cameron doesn't answer for her, his hand still pressing intently trying to find kicking that's since subsided.

"Fine," answers for herself instead and as she thinks about standing, the barrage of kicks flies at her side again, causing her to hiss in another breath.

All three men, halt all their movements, going stiff like the porch cats, like they want to bolt, and she almost laughs, because she remembers Tomin and even the priors having the same reaction.

Shifts to her side to try and direct their child to pummel the other side of her body for a change. "Just a lot of kicking."

 _:0 —#Who is kicking#_

"The baby." Pushes herself off the rock, feels Cameron's hand guiding at the small of her back.

 _:O —#What baby#_

"She's pregnant." Two offers, rolling his shoulder back, and marching back to the mouth of the cavern.

One, glances from Chippie back to her and, with an incredulous tone, questions, "you can't tell?"

 _: —#I could Dr. Daniel Jackson. As you know I am programmed for medical diagnostics. But it is impolite to ask#_

They walk slowly, her boots dragging across the dirt, and for the first time she feels tired. Tired enough that she doesn't want to be here and would rather be at home—would rather be on Earth where people she trusts can see to her being happy and healthy, but that wish is a little too farfetched now.

Although there are a few natural holes acting as lights, most of the ruins lays in darkness, with torches aligned on the walls illuminating very little of the caverns. The dust ground turns grittier as they stand in the mouth of the cave.

 _:) —#How are you feeling#_

Chippie's question echoes through the darkness but doesn't upset the bat creatures by the snarling teeth of the entrance. They've probably grown accustomed to his exhaust and his voice.

"I'm doing well—"

Before she can add a 'thank you' to the end of her sentence, Cameron interrupts her. "Except for the backaches, the nausea—"

"Which is probably exacerbated by the types of food you choose to eat," One chimes in, calibrating his data pad to the type of glyphs on this particular set of ruins.

"If you experts will excuse me, I was going to say—" As the baby kicks again she winces, the palm of her hand rubbing at her side "—except for the near constant kicking."

"What does your doctor have to say about it?" Two looks up from his data pad, and both her and Cameron fall silent. He squints his eyes through the same thin-rimmed glasses she's broke half a dozen times, and cautiously adds, "You…do have a doctor. Right?"

"We—" Cameron looks at her trying to find a way to explain that they don't want anyone on Thea interested in their baby "—we're having trouble finding one we trust."

"Vala, you need to—"

"This is just idiotic, Mitchell—"

"—and a sonogram—"

"—are you going to live—"

"—and an ultrasound—"

"—just never trust anyone—"

"—and prenatal vitamins—"

"Just go see Lam already."

Her head perks up at the last comment, because she's heard the other ones from Cameron before.

She needs to have the scary blob picture done. They need to hear the baby's heartbeat. Just ordinary Tau'ri things that lesser planets consider frivolous—although once he did leave his guide to babies on the arm of the couch while he was in the shower, and she did read up on the benefits of prenatal vitamins and over the course of several doctor's appointments and post mission checkups, managed to accumulate roughly six months worth.

But that last comment—

"We can't go see Lam—"

"Yes, you can." Two interrupts, one hand removing his glasses and the other wiping across his face. "Is it really worth the health of—"

"Do. Not." Cameron face falls hard, his molars crunching together and his jaw muscles tight. He's taken a step forward, jabbing a finger at Two. "Tread. Lightly."

Darts her eyes between Cameron, stiff and unmoving in the sand like he's stepped on a mine, and Two who's head is lowered. One has a grim look on his face, and she doesn't understand the full implications of the conversation.

What was just suggested.

What was just divulged.

"What's going on?"

 _:) —#It seems as if Dr. Daniel Jackson and Lieutenant Colonel Cameron Mitchell are having a squabble#_

Chippie's unhelpful whisper from beside her would usually warrant a grin and pat on her part, but the mood, the shift in dynamics is distracting. "I'll ask one more time—"

"It's nothing," Cameron grunts, sliding her pack up his arm to sit with his. "We're losing time."

But the Daniels don't move, Two's head still hangs and One's brow furrows in contemplation. "Cameron."

"Vala—It's nothing, you wanted to do this, let's just—"

"Cameron." As she takes a step forward, the barrage of kicks their child launches into another barrage of kicks. Without fully implicating their child in his means to answer, she simply rubs at her side with a bit of a pout. "You owe me an answer."

But he says nothing and the longer the conversation continues, the more her heart sinks. Knew the protective overprotective line was very thin but didn't think he'd cross entirely this soon.

"You've been allowed—"

"Jackson, I will haul your asses back to—"

"—on Earth—"

"Jackson!"

"—for almost a month now."

Stares at One, trying to contemplate the information, discerning if it means what she thinks it means and if that's so, trying to quell the hot pit of rage now brewing in her stomach. "Back on Earth?"

"The Alien Act was almost immediately revoked. Landry, O'Neill, Sam, they all put in pleas, spent three days explaining how you and Teal'c are beneficial members of the team." One stands from zipping up his pack, tossing it over his shoulder, he again, almost hits Chippie.

Two resets his glasses and blows air out his mouth, hands resting on his thighs. "Teal'c's been back for almost a month, when we found out we contacted Mitchell through—"

Her head snaps towards her husband, who glowers at the Daniels in the same way she glares at him. "You knew?"

"I—"

"He knew," Two nods his head.

"We could have gone home to be with our friends, with your parents, and—" Her face scrunches, the emotions causing her to overreact, something she's aware of but has no logical way of stopping. Feels her eyebrows dip, the tears burn in the corner of her eyes. "You didn't tell me."

"Vala." Perhaps he realizes just how serious the situation is, because he takes a step towards her. They could have returned to SGC, and been happier, been less stressed. Had the internet and television, shopping malls and sports cars, taco Tuesdays and stat holidays. All her favorite things. "It's not safe there."

"No." Tugs her arm away from him, and when her tears hit her hand, she realizes she's started crying. "Apparently it is."

"I don't think—"

"That's just it. You're always doing the thinking for both of us."

"I'm just trying to—"

"No, Cameron, you have no idea how I feel. How—" each day is a struggle because she loves him and he loves the baby, and she just wanted to give it a chance, but everyday she wakes up nauseous from anxiety, from knowing that Athena, and if not her, someone else, will track her down. Will hurt the life inside her that she's given up so much to protect. "Dare you."

"Vala." Scrambles towards her like she's going to stomp away, when she doesn't have the strength to move just yet. He collects her hand in his, his palm sweaty, but cold. "Just listen—"

Doesn't tear her hand away, what he's done will be forgivable, but she needs time. Needs separation. "I'm done listening to you for the foreseeable future."

Before he can answer, just as she turns away, fully waddling towards the Daniels in her emotionally drained state, Chippie sputters up.

 _:) —#I'm ready to navigate you through the ruins now#_

* * *

 _A/N: I hope you enjoyed Chippie. I love him. He's a good and precious boy. That's all._


	4. To Go

2 4 1

Chapter 4

To Go

She won't talk to him.

Flat out, won't talk to him.

As that computer boulder thing floats around giving a brief history of the ruins, how they were set in place to copy Ancients, in order to do twice as much work at once. Apparently the Goa'uld adopted the technology when the Ancients ascended but there were defenses put in place to—is she really going to give him the silent treatment.

He ambles a little too close to her, and without even blinking an eye at him, she ducks behind a Jackson to be on the outside of the group, something he doesn't like because what if one of these defenses is an Indiana Jones style boobytrap that she sets off because she's too busy holding a vendetta against him.

It's not her fault.

She's exhausted from nausea, from the extra weight of the baby, he drops back to cover the rear because she obviously isn't going to be talking to him anytime soon—he's really trying to think of what he did wrong here—which is nothing. Why would they go back to Earth? They were on such good terms before and look what happened. They worked for the actual government in planetary defense, but somehow the government still tried to screw them, and every time he thinks maybe he overreacted and that they should discuss the possibility of going back, he remembers when they arrested her—kidnapped her—from their house in the middle of the night.

A smile graces his face though because underneath the brown leather jacket that will no longer zip up, her hips sway in the most pronounced waddle he's ever seen.

They stop at a fork in the ruins. Both hallways look equally dangerous with low light and tight walls. One, who leads the troop, uses one hand to position his flashlight and the other to check his data pad. "We need to split up."

"We're not splitting up" serves back almost immediately, and although he can't see her face, he knows she just rolled her eyes.

Two turns over his shoulder, his teeth tight and his eyes narrowing a bit. "Well someone only gave us a day for three days of work."

He chuckles at the attempt to dump the blame on him, because the Jacksons are wily, they know she's pissed and if they can turn her against him they'll have a majority vote in this crap shack democracy. "We're not staying."

"Then we need to split up."

"Am I the only one here who's ever seen a scary movie?" The flashlight swings around, dancing across the walls and even from inside the wind whistles through the rock. "Rule number one: don't split up. I don't want to be alone whenever the evil one of you two cracks."

 _:) —#If I might make a suggestion? Perhaps splitting into pairs would help you complete your task faster#_

"Makes sense." One nods, his chin resting in the cup of his hand.

She still hasn't said a word, and it's been almost two hours of walking through ruins that all look the same, with the same stone and pretty much the same writing scrawled on the wall. This might be the longest streak of her not talking to him while conscious.

"All right." One turns the flashlight on her, and she isn't as carefree as she was before, as happy and bubbling with a skipping step and sweet smile. Instead she looks tired—he knows she is, she's been going nonstop for the last few days, taking up contracts as a free agent, and barely getting any sleep—sunken eyes and dry lips—and if he knew she wouldn't disagree with him as a form of protest, he would use his thigh as an excuse and demand they leave and go home. "You two head into that room, and Vala and I will take the—"

"No. No. No—"

The rest of the group—including her—groan around him and his constant need to remind them that under no circumstance is he leaving her.

"Mitchell—"

"No. Nope. Deal breaker we're—"

But she's already walking down the opposite hallway—well, waddling down it—with the computer rock puttering behind her, saying something she nods to.

"Vala—"

Goes to tear after her, but One stops him with a hand to his shoulder. "The Goa'uld addendums are down that hallway, so she needs to—"

"Then I'm—"

"—There's also important information, what we think are instructions to using the key for the clava thessara ininitas, but—"

"Then let's—"

"— _But_ it's in Ancient, so one of us has to go with her—"

"Then all of us can—"

"Look." Two's hand clasps down on his shoulder and he already doesn't like where this is going. "If everything goes according to plan, we can all be out of here in just under three hours, and you can go back to lying to Vala without our interruption."

"When was the last time anything ever went according to plan?" Has to ignore the last jab because he's very close to desecrating ancient ruins by kicking some Jackson ass. Ignores it for her, because fist fighting her best friends after leading her on a bit isn't going to make him look any better.

"Not now because you're driving us off topic and wasting time." One's feet crunch over the gravelly floors, as he pivots and follows the same hallway she did.

"Let me ask you this—" Hikes both the bag straps back up his shoulders and—both bags, he still has her pack of sugary snacks. Should probably go take it to her but doesn't like the idea of her being more bogged down. Maybe if she gets hungry, she'll actually seek him out. "How do you expect me to be useful? I don't read Ancient, or Goa'uld, I've got a bum thigh that's already acting up—"

Flipping his flashlight to the relatively cobweb free hall, Two begins the trek to the second room. He follows, eyes scanning the walls for anything out of place for what he knows of the ruins so far.

"You can just hold the flashlight or something."

* * *

It used to be so simple.

So, so simple.

It was just her and him, and their happy little accident, and a whack of back porch cats. They didn't have much, but they had fake ketchup and awful sugar puffed cereal which was enough to satiate her current cravings, but then the Jacksons—those wily bastards—had to creep their way back, find them twenty gate jumps away because she left a forwarding address for them and he loves her—God, he has to, to put up with this shit—but her nonchalance with her safety is going to give him a heart attack, and if he has to look at the same stupid Ancient block letters for another hour, he's going to have an aneurysm.

"Hold it straighter." Two pushes at the bulb of the flashlight with his palm, doesn't drag his eyes away from the same slab of rock he's been translating before he got all worked up again—she went one way and he went another and right now she could be with the evil Jackson clone and he wouldn't know.

Just snorts and pops his wrist when he holds his arm up straight again, going back to daydreaming nightmares of her fighting off evil clones, and ruin cave-ins, and that weird computer guy blasting around and—

"She's being weird because you're restraining her."

Again, Two doesn't looking away from the glyphs, instead tracing one onto his data pad and then lifting it to snap a picture. Then feels around on the floor for his little mat of set up archeology tools, retrieving a little brush that he swipes over the letter.

"Excuse me?" Loses his balance, crouching on the balls of his feet. The light waivers.

"Vala is wild—" stops midsentence pointing to another area of the wall, shuffling over on his feet, his body—without the aching thigh—never leaving the crouch as he demands, "light."

"Oh, I know." Might shoot the flashlight closer to Two's face then he originally intended, but what he doesn't need now, or ever really, is a lesson in Vala. She's his wife, although they haven't really taken to using the moniker that much aloud, it's how he thinks of her in his head. His wife, his love, the mother of his kid if they make it that far because right now she's probably contracting space rabies from all the bats lining the roof. "And I'm not restraining her, I'm protecting them."

"Them?" Two snaps another picture, leaning close to the wall, and sliding his index finger along the indented glyph.

"Her and the baby."

"That's another problem."

"You're telling me."

"No, Mitchell," Two huffs, then sets down his data pad beside all his other little tools, turning to him. "Vala, she's never stagnant, she doesn't settle."

Whatever this conversation is, he doesn't want to have it, sure as hell doesn't want to be having it while crouched in some dusty, smelly ruins. "People change. She's—"

"She may act content but—"

"She was with the SGC for almost 8 years before—"

"Yeah, and at the SGC she got to leave the planet about two or three times a week."

"Yeah, and she always came back to me." Not going to debate the validity of their relationship, of his untainted adoration for her, and how she makes him feel like no one else could ever. "She always came back."

"You're telling me there wasn't one time, just once, where she didn't come back unwillingly?"

Remembers lying on a bed in an inn on that planet where he took a zat for her, where she loped across a field like a wild jackrabbit from two snarling dogs and two angry guards, and how she tried to leave him, tried to back burner their relationship and how he refused.

When he doesn't answer, Two drops his brush and shakes his head, huffing, "Mitchell, she's pregnant."

"Again, well aware of that, Sunshine."

Two points back to the wall, shifting again, dragging his little cloth pack of tools with him. "That literally anchors her into place. It's a lifelong connection to you. For someone who doesn't like to be tied down—"

He drops the light again. "She's my wife."

"Fine," Two sighs, and taps his hand, nodding to the wall where to aim the light.

He aims it and tries to distract himself by thinking of all the reasons he shouldn't smash the flashlight into the back of Two's head.

"Let's say she's changed. She's completely content spending the rest of her life with you out in that shack without basic human amenities—"

"Jackson, you'd better have a point because I'm not in the mood to—"

"You're too overprotective."

"Well, she does a lot of stupid shit." Drops the light again, and this time let's his feet roll back until he's sits in the weak layer of sand still remaining after Two cleared most away.

"You weren't this overprotective before—"

"Yeah. I was. I just couldn't show it because of work."

"Fine, you weren't outwardly this overprotective before." Two grabs the flashlight now and clamps it beneath his chin so he can dust and touch and also see.

"So?"

"So?" The flashlight falls from the bob of his chin and rolls a little in the scattered sand. "So, she thinks you only care about the baby."

"Yeah, okay," he groans as he tries to construct himself on his feet, but the muscle in his thigh pulls tight and he ends up smashing his ass off the solid rock floor.

"Think about it. When was the last time you asked her something without the baby in mind?"

"I ask her stuff all the—"

But he doesn't.

Not really.

All his questions, if she ate, what she ate, if she slept, for how long, if she's tired, if she feels sick, all relate back to the baby, and his concern stemming for them. Hasn't asked her what contracts she's pulled recently, or what he should grow in the fields, or if she enjoys living where they are, or why she wants to go back to Earth so bad.

Two seems to understand the definition of his silence and nods, snapping the flashlight back to his belt and then crunching his boots over the ground as he stands. "You don't have to worry so much, Mitchell—"

He's not going to bother to argue with him on how Vala feels or why she reacts the way that she does—only she can give a truthful answer—although, his points are valid—but there's no way he can't worry about her. How many times has he almost seen her die? From torture, from lack of oxygen, from a gun pressed to her temple, from pollen, and arrows, and the garburator. How many times was he forced to watch her die in that looping day? It keeps him up at night, her leg heaped across his chest and his palm kneading into the small of her back while she's sound asleep, he holds her, bunches her hair, feels the softness of her skin against his, the steadiness of her breathing and listens to her snore until he can relax.

"After everything that's happened to her, yes I do."

"She's still self-sufficient."

"What's that supposed to mean?" Hears something echoing down the hallway, not so much like boots clomping, or her boots clomping, but almost hissing, like steam.

"It means that she can take care of herself."

"Yeah, well, maybe for the next few months she should let me help a bit."

Places the sound only a few seconds before the robot rock thing zips, wobbling in the air from speed, into the room, interrupting their debate about his wife by saying nothing but his name on repeat.

 _:O —#Lieutenant Colonel Cameron Mitchell! Lieutenant Colonel Cameron Mitchell#_

"Yeah, I'm here." Dusts off the shins of his pants after the exhaust port from the robot thing stirs up the dirt on the ground.

 _:O —#You must follow me quickly. There has been a disaster#_

"Disaster?" Two says the word like he doesn't know the full meaning of it, and he probably hasn't since he's never been on the receiving end of a call that begins 'we have a problem'.

"Is Vala okay?"

The ruin guardian doesn't answer him, instead zips off back into the hallway at such a speed that he only grabs the packets before leaving Two in his literal dust, bounding down the hallway, ignoring the pain burning in his lungs. "Hey Rockbot."

 _:\ —#Vala Mal Doran is in distress. She requested your immediate—#_

"What happened?" Almost out of breath but boosts up his feet, thankful that he still does his early morning jogs. Doesn't stop until he almost rams into the robot's back face as it blocks the doorway. When he squirms around it, he finds a room similar to the one he and Two were in, but empty. "Where is she?"

 _:—#In the lower catacombs#_

"Where is that?" His hands clasp down on the side of solid rock and he glares at a low-resolution screen of a face, his huffing breaths causing fog over the domed exterior. "Is she okay?"

 _:( —#For now yes#_

"For now?" Pants as Two falls into place behind him halting himself with several slapping steps.

 _:( —#Her blood pressure and temperature are up, and she is leaking saline from her eyes#_

"She's crying?"

"What happened?" Two shuffles into he room exploring the writing quickly, his finger still dragging over the indented glyphs.

He doesn't want to tell them that he didn't need a crystal ball to predict this disaster, and before his hands turn to knuckles and he starts beating an archeologist with a rockbot, he focuses on Vala, somewhere below them—all questions but how to get to her can wait.

 _:( —#I did not want to leave her Lieutenant Colonel Cameron Mitchell, but she pleaded with me to find you and bring you to her#_

"Then let's go." Releases the floating bolder and steps into the room.

 _:( —#It is not that easy. In order to reach the lower catacombs, you need to be cloned#_

That garners Two's attention and he stands from crouching, almost halfway through reading the room. "Come again?"

 _:( —#The lower catacombs are where all those cloned are stored in stasis#_

"So Vala's in stasis?"

 _:( —#No. Dr. Daniel Jackson set off the cloning reaction within the temple walls. I was able to redirect her down a different chute during the process. However, Dr. Daniel Jackson was cloned again, and being a clone, his cells immediately started breaking down—#_

"Wait, so that Daniel was the fake." Two stands straighter, a look of shock wiping itself clean from his face and quickly being replaced with a tight, smug grin. "I knew—"

"Focus, Sunshine."

"Right. Right. We should—"

 _:\ —#Actually Dr. Daniel Jackson, you cannot travel to the lower catacombs as you are also a clone, you'll decompose as well#_

"What?"

"What?"

"Neither of us were the original?"

 _:| —#As aforementioned, the originals are stored in the lower catacombs. I was able to redirect Vala Mal Doran from being processed, saving her life in the interim, however in order to be reunited with her, Lieutenant Colonel Cameron Mitchell, you will need to be—"_

"Do it."


	5. On the Wagon

2 4 1

Chapter 5

On the Wagon

She thinks he's dead.

Was fiddling around with the indentations on the ruin wall and tripped something up, a classic Daniel mistake, causing a bright white flash to encompass him first. As she turned, angling her head and calling out to him, something shoved into her, directing her to one side, away from the light.

When she opened her eyes, when they were clear of blurs and spots, she was in a different level of the ruins in what looks to be a labyrinth. There's very little light, only torches stuck burning lowly along the walls kept aflame by someone or something.

But in the backlit glow, she identifies Daniel laying face down on the stone-cobbled floor. His glasses toppled a few inches from his face and his body showing no signs of life.

She has bruises from the fall, or rather the transfer, could have been beamed down here for all she knows, and other than her now constant state of nausea, she's never been better.

"Daniel?" Harshly whispers at his unconscious form. There's a bit of blood running from his ears and when she instinctively reaches to check her own, she finds a few drops dabbing her lobes.

Should be more worried about herself, would be if the baby wasn't so intent on still beating her innards raw. But despite her best efforts to remain nonchalant, fear tinges her voice this time around. "Daniel?"

Crawls towards him, covering the ten-foot gap with her bruised knees burning over hard stones, and one hand on her belly to protect the little one from dragging. She's panting by the time she reaches him, collects his glasses in her hand and watches for the rise and fall of his back, of his chest beneath his body's weight.

"Daniel?" Overly panicked, vision blurring from tears and the lingering otherworldly flash, her palm flies to shove at his back, to flip him so his face isn't buried against the ground which is entirely the wrong thing to do.

His body—his body becomes malleable under her touch, wet and soft like rotten fruit. The sound, the smell of innards escaping brittle skin is nightmarish, blood and bones and organs turned into a slurry and she crawls two steps back before vomiting from shock, from response, from morning sickness, it doesn't matter anymore because there's nothing else in her stomach to bring up, just a bit of water from earlier.

The stench of stomach acid mingles with dust in stone, the bitter smell and Daniel's rotting do not mix, only making her gag harder. She tries to stand but slips against smooth stones until she clambers into a corner, almost out of view, panting before hysterically wailing.

Her Daniel.

One of her precious Daniels and there are two, but she knew this one as she knows both, as she knew him when he was of a single mind and body. She's had tea with him, fetched him coffee, bought him birthday cards, and Christmas presents, and received get well cards from him when she fell ill. She knew how separate they were, how One was more logical, more likely to get isolated in his work and less personable, which is why he needed more attention. She pulled him first into the headlock hug on the ship, after he assured her there would be no harm to her or the baby, and he nudged his cheek against hers. She teared up, because One, who was more studious and into facts, not friends, had missed her as well.

 _:O —#Vala Mal Doran did the fall harm you#_

Hears Chippie's exhaust, feels the change in the air current, the short gusts of warmth as he bobs before her.

It's hard to talk, to breathe, to form sentences and when her hands come up to hide her face, there's a bit of Daniel's viscera stuck beneath her nails and dried between her fingers. Whips her wrist madly before rubbing it off on the floor, and then her pants, and then crying again.

This was him.

 _:( —#I wish to run a medical scan to search for your injuries#_

An ultraviolet light encapsulates her, flickering briefly over her before she hears an unusual whirring from him.

 _: —#While your blood pressure and heart rate are accelerated I cannot find any evidence of injury#_

Touches him, his bouldered side, because she needs grounding and if it's a ruin guardian who needs to do it now, so be it. "What—what hap—"

 _:C —#Unfortunately Dr. Daniel Jackson's clone initiated the cloning process. Clones cannot be cloned as it results in cellular deconstruction which—"_

Looking over at Daniel who is little more than a wet mass puddling out from beneath clothes, she doesn't require further information.

 _:I —#It might please you to know that your fetus is uninjured and medically healthy#_

Takes a breath watching the leftovers of her best friend creep further across the floor, falling into the spaces between stones and coursing forward in little rivulets.

"Yes." She's not here, not right now, and her body is going numb, the trembling stopping, the comprehension oozing away. "Yes."

 _:) —#Would you like to know the gender#_

"Not—" She slaps his boulder a few times, the sensation awkward, unknown under her fingers and she leans back into the wall, suddenly tired, still shedding tears. Still leaking just as Daniel is. "Not right now."

 _:| —#Vala Mal Doran forgive me but I think you are unwell#_

"I—I am."

 _:C —#I do not understand. The medical scans indicated you are#_

"Chippie," sniffles, her face drenched, eyes burning and one of her hands still clutching Daniel's glasses against her stomach. "I need you to go get Cameron."

 _:( —#You wish for me to bring Lieutenant Colonel Cameron Mitchell to you#_

Rubs at the baby kicking in anger now at the influx of her emotions, of having to siphon through her unadulterated shock and dread. "Yes."

 _:C —#It's impossible to bring him to the lower catacombs he will need to be—#_

"Chippie, please bring me my husband."

* * *

She's only capable of waiting around the corner for a few minutes because she knows what's over her shoulder and despite not looking directly at where Daniel was, her imagination is pulling threads and knitting a horrible tapestry of grotesque images her mind immediately comprehends in a void left by the wake of Qetesh.

Hands flat against the walls, she's able to rise, sweaty and uneven in combat boots strangling her swelling feet as she embraces the fatigued waddle propelling her further down the corridor, away from his remains, finding more than a dozen doorways.

Ducking in the first room, she finds what looks like an empty pod, something that looks like it's used for suspended animation. There is not much light in the room, only filtering through from the torches in the corridor, and nothing of interest except the contraption that she doesn't immediately see the significance of.

She finds the same thing in the next room.

And the next.

And the next.

Until ducking into the fifth room, her legs starting to ache and her back growing very sweaty in the stagnant air below ground level, she finds the same thing, but occupied.

And she stares.

Then squints, angling her head to the side, because it is, but it can't be.

But it is.

Daniel.

Glasses removed; a neutral expression quite literally frozen onto his face. Another copy, perhaps kept for an archive and just how many of them did this temple need?

But this one—there's something unique about his face, how even frozen in this manner, he still looks perturbed, and whether it's the sudden shock, or the surge of hormones that wants her to curl into a foetal position on the floor and cry until she's transported out of these horrid ruins, she's unsure, but her hand reaches forward touching the outside of the stasis pod, her fingertips slipping over a face that scowled at her so often she could sketch it from memory.

The pod isn't cold to the touch, but he's not exactly frozen, in fact the pod would need to keep him at body temperature in order to maintain his life. As her fingertips lick over the warm glass, one of the screens to her right beeps to life, showing archaic markups written in Ancient. With her basic fluency level, she discerns that they're translating his body rhythms, heartbeat, brainwaves, urine output and as she angles her head int eh opposite direction, trying to decipher the importance, a more distressing klaxon goes off, a red light flashes, and the pod tips forward, knocking her back.

As she stumbles, the bottom breaks off the pod and all the liquid rushes out the bottom down a well placed drain before Daniel, nude in every aspect, slides out, his feet hitting the ground as he groans in half syllables, but due to his lack of a full consciousness, he falls to his knees before falling forward onto his face with a grunt.

The remaining liquid drips over his feet and she compresses into the corner. Daniel coughs up some of the pinkish liquid that rolls backwards down the gentle slope of the floor and to the drain. His hands worm underneath his torso, pressing him upwards to sit up. He runs a hand through his hair clearing it of more cotton candy colored droplets.

"Ugh." His hand runs greasy over his wet face and his eyes squint at her as he coughs another mouthful of the liquid up. "Who's there?"

She doesn't answer, still under the assumption that he's not one of her Daniels, and she wraps her jacket around herself tighter to try and hide her bump.

His glasses, much like his clothing, didn't make it through the preservation process and he's still having a difficult time pinning her down. He snorts, rubbing his forearm across his nose, "whoever is there, I could really use a towel here."

She doesn't have a towel, she doesn't even have her bag which is just snacks and nothing of value because this was supposed to be a fun excursion with her boys, with the two Daniels, and her wonderful—albeit overbearing—husband whom she adores. It wasn't supposed to lead to a fight that's been brewing between the two of them for the last six weeks, or to one of the Daniels liquefying at her touch.

Cameron was right, they never should have come, the never should have—

"Vala." He's standing now, his eyes squinting, his voice tense with concern. "Are you okay?"

Then she realizes she's crying, sobbing quite loudly, and this baby is already reeking havoc on her internals, they should be kind enough to leave her emotions alone.

"I'm here, Darling."

His voice settles and his muscles relax as he continues to scan the room for her. "What happened?"

"Well, that would depend on what you remember last."

"I went through a crack in the wall."

"One I told you not to?"

"Yes—" Hears the grating teeth in his response. "—then there was a bright flash and—"

Then it all makes perfect sense.

He's not a copy kept for archiving purposes, but rather the original stored away. Chippie mentioned upon their first trip here that the main reason for cloning was to duplicate the amount of work an Ancient could do. Had always just assumed that fifty percent of the duplication would be the original, but it seems as if the original is stored away, perhaps until the clones are no longer of use or deceased.

But Two was still alive when she left him with Cameron. If Two is dead she's lost another friend, and her husband may very well be—

"Vala, you have to do something other than cry."

"He's dead." She's surprised by the own lack of emotion in her voice, perhaps she's used up her reserves.

"Who's dead."

"The other you for sure."

"What other me?" He's ambling towards her, hands out before him, legs straight, knees stiff, and perhaps not entirely aware of his level of nudity.

"You were cloned, Daniel."

"When?"

Shrugs off her jacket, finding her skin growing very hot, the room and her chest feeling tight, her head empty and floating. "When you walked into that crack. It made two clones of you and stored you away."

"How—how much time did we lose?" When she taps her hand, the one balling up her jacket to his outstretched arm, he bucks back, but then reaches forward, his slimy fingers scrolling down hers. "What's this?"

"My jacket, you might want to rap it around you waist. You're quite nude." Wrenches the jacket from her hands, tying the arms around his hips, his hands weaving rapidly. "Oh, a pair of your glasses are in the top front pocket."

He smirks at her, reaching for One's glasses, plucked off the ground before—before—Slamming them onto his face and his eyes fully blossom open. "How much time, Vala?"

"Oh." Rubs at the top of her stomach, the baby finally settling, feeling like a drifting leaf within her, delicate and gentle and they never should have come. Why did he let her come? "About four years."

"Four _years_?" Almost screams the word, his mouth falling open, and his fingers snatching the fumbling jacket back to his hips.

"And change."

"I'm sorry if I seem a little unappreciative, but why the hell did it take you four years to find me?" He's pacing in the small room, about the size of the curtained off medical areas in Dr. Lam's medical bay. His legs are wobbly, and he's waddling much like her.

"You produced two clones." While the kicking has subsided, her nausea has not. A new wave of dizziness spreads through her as she grabs at her stomach and banks into the wall for stability. "We didn't—we thought one was you."

He stops his pacing, bunching her jacket with one hand and the other pointing at her. "Holy crap."

"What?" Drops her head down, trying to see what he can, what she can't. Worried there will be pieces of One left over on her.

"You're pregnant."

Rolls her eyes because now there's another man to just constantly remind her of it. "Obviously."

"How did that happen?"

"Honestly, Daniel, you've always boasted about your superior education."

"You didn't get sucked through another supergate, did you?" His stance is still uncomfortable as he lowers himself, and her jacket, to a stone either used for decoration or display. Wishes she had claimed the seat first.

"Not this time."

Then the color, the blood, drains from his face. "It's not mine is it?"

"How could they be yours; you've been in stasis for four years."

"Stranger things have happened."

He quiets and in the looming silence she is privy to her own heartbeat in her ears. Cameron was so right about this, of the dangers waiting for them all because she can never be fully domestic, can never embrace the roles that come naturally, the ones that frighten her the most.

"Wait a minute, it's not one of my clones' is it?"

"No." Shakes her head, hand rubbing like she's polishing fine wares when she really trying to alleviate the pressure in her lower pelvis, the tension of her stomach.

"Is it—"

Snaps her head to him, wishing he was One and knew when to read her tones with four years of greater expertise, and then simultaneously feeling guilty because he's him and the other two were only copies that learned to develop personalities of their own. "This child is not biologically related to you in any manner."

"Then whose baby—"

"Is that really of the greatest importance right now?" The lightheadedness she's been fighting since the gruesome scene in the hallway is becoming more prominent and she's hot again, so she turns her head in against the cold limestone constructing the ruin walls but finds that it's heated as well.

"Well." Adjusts her jacket over his lap and starts to mellow in his unexpected nudity. His hands clasp together, and he has a pestering grin on his face. "I do have four years of information to catch up on."

"Now's not the time for that conversation."

"Then there's the fact that you look like crap." His bare feet kick a bit, heels bouncing off the side of the stone. "And the fact that you're pretty pregnant—"

"Excuse you, I'm only five months—"

"—and you're still out in the field, which raises a number of bigger questions that are a little more concerning."

"Fortunately for me, Daniel, what's happening within my body is of no direct concern to you." It's getting harder to stand, harder to continue to have the conversation in the wake of the never-ending stream of nausea she's been experiencing since arriving at the ruins.

"Then who else is going to tell you that you can't keep making dumb decisions in your—"

Doesn't get to hear the end of his patronizing sentence comparing her carrying a child to some farfetched illness preventing her mobility and sanity, because she slides down the wall, half able to steer herself, albeit, a little less than gently to the ground, passing out.


	6. On the Run

2 4 1

Chapter 6

On the Run

He knew this shit was going to happen.

She always brags about something she calls her 'womanly intuition' and while they were packing, while she was trying to find a shirt that would fit over her stomach without rolling up and showing a sliver of skin, she didn't sound as confident as she usually does. Excited and content and happy to be back out in the galaxy exploring, but when he asked her if she thought this was a good idea she hesitated before answering and then played it off by being distracted by her now too tight clothing and then used it to distract him too.

He didn't have a good feeling about this, but then again he never does, and he spoke up and she shot him down because for the past five years that's what they've done. He worries and she sashays in with a huge gun and her clothes all torn and her body all bruised. He pulls thorns and brambles and leaves from her messy hair, while she sits between his legs and every so often tickles the bottom of his side-turned feet, laughing when he bucks and drops a stick into the plastic bag they use for an easy access garbage.

He ignores the pile of whatever exploded in the hallway, swerves around it as the computer rock guardian putters above, it's face disappears, and a radar of inferred lights flashes as it tries to track her. He's breathing heavy, his thigh is screaming, like someone shot him straight through, and there's so much sweat on his upper brow that he can barely see, but the damn radar thing is taking too long, seconds she might not have because he backed down when the bandwagon told him to, because he thought that he was suffocating her when he just wants to make sure she's okay and now that she's not—

"Vala," screams and it's guttural ripping from his throat because they didn't go through everything—through all the shit they went through—for her to disappear in the bottom of some shitty Xerox ruin. Again, he ignores the pool of what his mind is now clarifying is somebody and all he can do is call again, scream her name again, because he left the shotgun at home in the closet. "Vala!"

Miraculously, someone answers.

Not her, it sounds like One and before the computer can beep and boop about it, he takes off towards the voice. His eyes may be shit and his thigh may be shot, but he has perfect hearing still, and still hears all the remarks she makes under her breathe when she walks away from him. She's caught onto this since they've been living together full-time and has started saying really cute, sweet things to him instead and he will lose whatever's left of his mind if a single thing is wrong with her.

One must hear his footsteps get closer over the gritty sand and beckons him, from the mouth of the door, into the right room, the one with more light, glowing a strange warm orange from several flickering torches.

Then he sees her on the ground

Slides through the grit like he's playing baseball, whipping off his jacket and piling it under her head.

"How long has she been out?"

"Maybe five minutes." One answers. He's wearing her jacket as a skirt—which isn't important right now—after that stint with the monks, he's learned to stop judging her first.

Touches the side of her face and finds her clammy, her hair sticking to her cheeks and across her forehead. Hands sweep over her body, trying to find a problem, stopping on her ribs, finding her breathes shallow. "Did she get sick? Get dizzy? Was she hungry?"

"I don't know, Mitchell, I just got unfrozen—"

"I don't care."

And he doesn't.

Grabs at his bag, the one that has the first aid kit, and tucks it underneath her knees, elevating her legs a bit. "Did she hit her head?"

"I didn't see her hit it off anything, but she was crying, hyperventilating and when she touched my arm she was hot."

Tries to take her pulse but he can't concentrate, can barely find it. Just a little flutter in the background of his own heartbeat banging in his ears. "Why was she crying?"

"Because of the other me."

"Two was with me. He's fine." Pulls the hair way from her face, from her neck, pressing fingers into her neck and finding a stronger pulse.

"Two? Who's—"

He silences One, and drops his ear to her chest, waiting to hear her inhale, one of his hands absently rubbing over her stomach, trying to illicit a kick. Her breathes stay shallow, but then she inhales deeply, her fingertips twitching against his wrist and her eyes opening halfway, bogged down with fatigue.

"Hey Princess." Tries to keep the emotion, the relief, from wavering his voice too much. He cups her cheek, grinning down at her.

"What—" Wriggles a bit beneath him, shaking his hand away from her face, and shoving a palm into her eye. Then her eyes snap open, the tiredness replaced with something else, something worse. She shoots up, and his hands clamp down harder than he intends.

And again, he doesn't know what to do.

Ask if she's okay? If the baby is? What happened? Should tell her they need to leave because the ruins are starting to give him a creepier vibe than before there were two more of him skittering around upstairs—if he does any of those things will he set her off and make her angrier? if he does nothing is he indifferent?—Because he's not. He would give anything to be back at the stupid farmhouse drinking a hot tea on the back-porch swing.

But the look in her eyes—wild, frightened—like she woke up from one of the many nightmares he never gets to hear about, just eases her out of. Like she's struck with electricity again, watching him from the bad end of a charged jail cell, and he does what he always does, not because it's his nature, but it's who he is, and he can't not worry.

"Easy, Sweetheart, easy." Strums a thumb over her cheek, calming her shaky breaths, her muscles tense as all hell, just solid, and her fingers curled into fists. Chances cupping his hand to the side of her face again, parting his fingers around her ear and burying them in her hair. Her eyes land on him, frantic but empty, and he swallows the bitter taste in his mouth. "Can you tell me what happened?"

"I—"

"We were talking, and she started saying—"

"Not now, Jackson." Doesn't turn his attention away, but her eyes droop, turn downward and the weight of her head is noticeable in his palm. "Vala."

"I don't—" She knits her brows together, leaning more forward and he pushes back lightly against her to keep her stable, make her accept her own weight, and he wishes to hell that he wasn't so good at this, but she does it almost every night now, and he doesn't know if her dreams are worse because she's pregnant, or if there's another reason for it.

"Hey." Tips her head up, her skin sweaty and hot and he's fine with getting thrown up on right now. It's happened before, he's sure their kid will throw up on him too. It can be a family thing. "Talk to me."

But her mouth stays a tight line, eyes glassy and shimmering and God he hates that look, like something in her is broken—like he broke something in her.

"Hey." Nudges her nose with his, making her flinch back a bit, nothing dangerous, just shocked at the contact. "Is this about the SGC?" He burrows his fingers through her tight fist, laces his fingers with hers and she starts to respond, relaxing her hand, sliding her fingers through the grooves between his knuckles. "Is this about Athena?"

"Athena? What does she have to do with—"

"Jackson, I swear to God that if I wasn't so horrified of the idea of seeing you naked, I'd kick your bare ass from this room." Speaks from the side of his mouth, through gritted molars.

"Daniel?" Her brows knit again, and she raises her head like a deer after hearing a coyote snap a twig too close.

He bought that goddamn gun for coyotes.

One's head cocks as he instinctively shifts away from them, not knowing how much he'd pay to have her say his name right now. "—Yes?"

Tugs the hair tie from around her wrist again, pulling her hair up into a mound at the back of her head, in the weak torchlight her skin glistens white.

"You—"

"I what?" One checks his brows, confused and a little impatient.

"You're—"

Then she yanks away from him, her eyes wide. "You're dead."

"What?" He collects her back against him, afraid if she stands too quickly she end up back on her ass.

"He's dead. One is dead."

"One? Who is One?"

"No, baby, look he's right—"

She draws in a jagged breath, working herself up again, panting, getting close to hyperventilating. "No, he was in the hallway with me—"

"Honey, you have to—"

Then it hits him.

The pile of ooze in the hallway.

The boulder thing said that clones can't be cloned and if One was the clone, then the ruins literally liquefied him. Then he takes a look at the 'Jackson' across from him, still using her jacket like a blanket, with a smug grin on his face that he assumed was just a normal Jackson grin. His hand reaches back for the sidearm he demanded the Jacksons give him to secure his passage, slowly guiding her behind him.

"Cameron, don't."

"I told you one of these bastards was going to be the evil one."

She pops up beside him, one of her hands trying to lower his arm. Glances over and she's rubbing her stomach, her eyes red, and half open. She looks worse than she did when she caught that cold from Antarctica.

"He's the original."

"What about the one that was with me?"

"Another clone." Jackson's answer is curt and his shocked expression melts into one of irritation. "Are you going to put the gun down anytime soon?"

"How do we know he's the original?"

"Because Vala whacked the stasis pod while—"

Her hand clamps down on his shoulder as she lurches forward, urping up whatever was left in her stomach which isn't much, onto the dusty stone floor.

"That." Jackson's nose hikes in disgust as he turns away from the meager amount of stomach acid she brought up.

"I'm pregnant, you idiot," she huffs, one of her hands flat palmed to the stone to help her keep from toppling over. "This is ninety percent of what I do now."

He offers her a hand for stability, but she slaps it away, wiping leftover vomit from her lips with the back of her bare arm, and coughing a few times. Wants to roll his eyes at the stubbornness he thought he was used to by now, but everyday with her is an adventure that he gets no instructions for. Instead he hooks her bag with his boot through the strap from where he dropped it on the floor and drags it towards him.

All the while Jackson, the apparently original Jackson, is going off on some rant that he only manages to catch the ass end of. e rolls her "—these are all plot points I've already been made aware of regaining my consciousness, oh—half an hour ago."

"Let me be the second to welcome you back." Finds her water bottle easily in her backpack now filled with three of four baggies of cereal that's been crushed into a fine powder, handing it to her, watching her take lolling sips. "And let me be the first to tell you that we have more important things to do then attend your Q&A session."

"How about one brief sentence."

Tugs on the strap of his backpack now, reaching in and unraveling extra clothing, for him and her, until he finds pants and a shirt, tossing them across the space. "Only if you put those on."

"Fine." Jackson's eyes narrow and this has to be the original one because the scowl is too perfected, teetering between being menacing and being a joke as he stands—with his wife's jacket still hanging from his crotch—turning so his back is to them when he eventually drops the jacket.

He darts his eyes towards her, just a quick check, and she's sitting again, resting with her head back against the wall, still panting, both palms flat out on the stone.

"You got cloned, I sent one of you back through the gate, the other one apparently got vaporized because clones can't be cloned, we're here trying to find information about the Clava Thesaurus thing because Athena, although she's laying low, is still a threat."

Jackson's voice is muffled by the sweater he tugs over his head. "So, what exactly does the SGC want to do with—"

"Let me stop you right there, Sunshine." Takes the second to take a swig of his own water, it's too warm for him to enjoy. "We're not with the SGC anymore."

"We?" Jackson squints and for the first time he's realized that he has no glasses. "We as in you two and my clones or—"

Glances over to Vala again, and her eyes are closed, her breathing just as heavy. "Just us."

"Just you?"

He crouches, ignoring Jackson's question, and zips the bags back up, unsure if he should sling them over his arm and get moving, or if she needs a longer rest.

"Why just you?"

Ignores the question in a sense again, as his hand cups the side of her neck, his thumb caressing behind her ear. Her eyes open, but languidly, almost painfully, and her head tips forward. When she doesn't say anything to him, he rubs her stomach, hoping this kid will kick and give them a reason to celebrate instead of fight. "You need a longer rest, Princess?"

Her hand covers his and in raspy, dry-mouthed words, her lips cracking and her skin flushing she answers, "I want to go home."

And it's like a choir of angels sings.

He pecks a kiss on her clammy forehead, tasting the saltiness of her sweat and holding her hand in his. "Baby, I thought you'd never ask."

"Oh." Jackson exclaims, but there's no shock in his reply, more like confusion, or maybe disbelief. "I—umm—guess that—uhh—congratulations are in order."

"You can send a baby shower gift later." Holds out his hand to help her up, but she's shaky on her feet and her balance isn't the best.

She hooks her arms around his neck, and he lifts the majority of her weight, hugging her with an arm around her shoulders and one over her lower back. Her head hangs a bit before he presses his shoulder forward so she can rest it against him. Her voice is weak and still hoarse, but she reminds, "and a wedding gift."

"Well, you guys have been busy."

"And happy too until—"

 _:O —#Dr. Daniel Jackson! You are awake#_

"Yes—uhh—what did you name this thing again?"

"Chippie."

"Right."

 _:O —#Dr. Daniel Jackson you should not be awake#_

"Well that would be Vala's—"

 _:O —#No Dr. Daniel Jackson. You cannot be awake#_

Her head falls flaccid against his shoulder again, just like when they cuddle on the couch and she tries to put on a tough show of not being constantly exhausted.

"I need to sit down," she barely whispers to him, and he doesn't argue or ask what's wrong. Just nods, helping her back down to rest against the wall.

Jackson continues to carry on a conversation with the rock TV. "What do you mean?"

He guides himself down the wall to sit beside her, ready when she leans against him again. Rubs her thigh reassuringly and nudges her with his shoulder. "Lay down."

 _:O —#You still have a clone active#_

"So?"

She doesn't argue with him which is a relief and also a terrifying thing. Her head rests in his lap and he pulls loose strands of hair from her face, trying to soothe the nausea away.

 _:O —#It is a direct violation of ruin operations#_

"What exactly does that mean?" Jackson groans, tiring quicker with the back and forth.

 _:C —#It means that an immediate self-destruct protocol of all remaining clones has been initiated#_

"Cameron." Her eyes shoot open, but she doesn't budge. Her hand fishes around for his until he gives it to her, expecting her to shove it against their kicking baby, but she holds onto it tightly, like she's drowning, like if she lets go she'll disappear. "Something's wrong."


	7. From the Sorrow

2 4 1

Chapter 7

From the Sorrow

She knows something is wrong.

Her stomach, not so much nausea, rather the hardness of it, the harshness, as if she can feel the entirety of her entrails solidify within her. It's not the baby, can't be the baby's adorable kicks against a kidney or her bladder, because the pain never ebbs, only amasses and grows. The sweat present from her morning sickness, from her extra weight and recalibrated gravity center is different, no longer a glow but a warning. The pounding in her head is similar to the bass of the radio in his car, his Jeep traded in from a Mustang because he wasn't going through a ;midlife crisis' any longer.

But she doesn't focus on any of that, instead holding on to the feeling of his fingers through her clumping hair, gentle tugging to massage. The low mutterings of him and Daniel One—Daniel—acting as a lullaby, similar to the one her mom would sing her of an abandoned baby by a river and an insect whose children were in jeopardy of being burned alive.

That was long ago, before all the atrocities committed both by her and against her, when she would stand on the round pebbled river shore and feel the clear waters rush over her feet and between her toes, while holding her doll solely by the arm. Before Jacek's final abandonment to take his first of filler wives, because although he fails to admit it, her mother was the love of his life and when she—she—

Daniel One is in the middle of the ruin floor, pale and unmoving eye whites only, rolled back into his head and then disintegrating underneath her fingertips, by her action, someone who was with her for four years, and a clone, and that didn't matter. It didn't matter because he wasn't one to her, he was a friend, a confidant, a brother. One who packed up her bag and broke the control panel of her holding cell, kissed her on the temple as they embraced and told her to keep herself safe. The one who slid over his unfinished bowl of cereal to her this morning because he could tell she was still famished.

Who hugged her just as tightly as she hugged him when he accidentally abducted her from her home. He preferred the color blue, didn't like seafood, and always had on jazz music if he was alone.

All of that is gone now.

As her mother is.

As her father might as well be.

Came back once, gifting her a pair of golden earrings inlayed with red rubies to quell her abandonment issues, and cradling a bouquet of lotuses, her mother's favorite. Only her mother had gone to market a few hours before, had been leaving the house more and more frequently and when she asked, still innocent in youth and unmarred, her mother explained she was brokering deals as money was getting tight without Jacek's steady income and the price of their land, of their amenities, wasn't cheap.

Then one time her mother left and didn't come back.

But someone else did.

The neglect, the desertion, the idea of her family ties fraying at both ends and then snapping in the middle made her fear the commitment, made her nomadic in adulthood, marrying frequently but never settling for more than a year in one spot, never loving completely, less she get ensnared in another snapping thread.

"Vala."

But someone else caught her.

Caught her willingly.

He kissed her first. Kissed her, she thought, because she wouldn't stop speaking, but the reasoning wasn't of concern to her at the time. His hands on her hips, sliding up her sides, nesting in her hair, the way he tasted—those were of concern. The smell of his aftershave that is now a scent so inherently him or the snore he does when he's extra exhausted, all little attributes she wouldn't be able to part with should he suddenly disintegrate, that she would still seek out in day-to-day living from the routine attraction.

The baseline for her normality.

"Vala."

From the love she never sought nor wanted.

From her standing across from him chained up with several other men to be sold as slaves, removing herself from the situation and using the coldness, using the distance procured during much of her rearing to allow her to barter for him, to offer money in increments of value that wouldn't tip off the buyer to the amount of their funds and when the man blatantly told her that he was only interested in another method of payment, she accepted without hesitation.

When she was in his quarters, and he lumbered in, large, with a foul-smelling odor, and sleekness to his skin she's only witnessed in those plagued with sickness, she didn't hesitate to end his life the moment he touched her.

"Wake up, Baby."

After she wiped the blood from her face, she crouched beside the body, forcing herself not to think of the idiosyncrasies that this man brought to his familial and work relationships, not acknowledging that perhaps one of his work associates had enjoyed his stench, and plucked the keys from his front pocket.

Found it refreshing that, for once, there were no guards, no men to run towards her using their size, their muscles to intimidate her, no threat of falling victim as a slave of another sort, the kind Qetesh taught her all about.

Walked normally down a stone spiral staircase until encroaching the dungeon and then started to skip. There were guards there, but much to her liking, they were quite stoic and only wanted to do their job in peace, something she allowed them as she flashed them the keys and they let her through.

He sat against a bricked wall, skin a ruddy color from sun and dirt. He'd only been missing three days, the first of which she'd gated out of the mountain and ran as a free agent, more so as a berserker, to locate him. Used funds she'd less than legally procured from the team go bag, and when Muscles chased her through the SGC, trying to settle her down, telling her they needed to formulate a valid plan before barreling in, she ignored him. When he gated to the same place she had, following her thirty-eight minutes later, she'd hidden in plain sight among the throes of people in the marketplace. Paid a few off to tell him she'd left, and she's pretty sure she heard his exasperated sigh as he gated away.

Knew were Cameron was, was well aware of the men who'd taken him, purchased him really, from a jail where he'd been imprisoned defending her sullen honor, and she knew she had to get to him before he was moved offsite because finding him on a planet was easy, throwing him into an entire galaxy would take years upon years.

"Now that's not a very respectable position for a Colonel." Kept her voice a mixture of lighthearted humor and flirtation as was common between them since working closely for the last year and a half. First treated him as a replacement for Daniel who left her, somewhat reluctantly, to do a stint on Atlantis although she had asked him to stay. Perhaps that was the last push she needed to understand a romantic relationship between them would never occur, or if it did, it wouldn't be out of feigned hesitancy, but forced surrender.

"You going to show me a more respectable one, Princess?" His nicknames, his monikers for her flowed more casually in the workplace, his respect for her grew after work hours when she would play Tau'ri sports games of slamming clubs into balls, or throwing balls into baskets, and then casually drink him under the table. Would sit across from him at three in the morning after a night out and pick at her McDonald's breakfast the way he did his and when their lazy eyes scrolled up to meet each other, they would break into a fit of laughter, two somewhat middle-aged military personnel, giggling like children beside the play place.

The keys were theatrically big, heavy cast iron and they clanked against the door as she switched between the set trying to find the right one. "Your dorm, deluxe pizza, contraband six pack of beer with the game on the television?"

He approached the cell door, wrung his hands around the wrought iron, knuckles dirtied, bruised and bleeding from fighting back, because he, like her, will not go easily into captivity. "Honey, you are singing pure gold."

There's a clank, and then the heavy door squealed open. He raised his arms, and she stuck the smallest of the keys into his manacles, popping them off with ease. Then he did something completely uncharacterized of him at the time, he brought his hand to her face, his thumb over her cheek. Before she could relish in the comfort or recoil because fraternization between two SGC employees, as Daniel frequently parroted back to her, was completely forbidden, he pulled back and showed her the red on the pads of his fingers.

"You're bleeding, Princess."

"Not mine, my dear Colonel."

Upon their return to the mountain, he was immediately taken to the medical bay as she was sequestered for questioning and punishment. Although she had no concrete rights to leave the SGC and travel onto Earth soil outside, she was always allowed to use the gate freely to travel for recreation and diplomatic purposes. However, after her escape against direct orders, Landry revoked her ability to travel, forcing her to remain stagnant under the stone as if it were several years earlier, as if she didn't have the SGC's best intention in mind.

He found her leaning against the wall outside of medical and touched her arm to bring her out of the sour expression. "They grounded you didn't they?"

"Like an adolescent child." They ambled down the hallway, aiming for his room to execute her well-laid plan from before, when she took notice of his limp. "Did those idiots disable you when they meant to sell you for physical labor?"

He glanced down at his soft steps. "No, it's an old injury from a plane crash, the one at the Battle for Antarctica."

"Oh." Nodded but he became quiet under her stare, reddened in the face at what she assumed he must see as an imperfection. No one is perfect, her most of all, and sharing flaws seemed an appropriate response. "We all have our flaws, Cameron."

At his full name he pursed his lips, but nodded, comprehending, his body still walking close to hers. "I just hate it when the damn hip acts up, it makes me feel so old."

"Well if it's a bum hip you're in the market to alleviate, I know an old trick or two." Her wink let him know that the trick was sexual in nature and he rolled his eyes, shaking his head at her but laughing at her tenacity.

And that's how it was before he kissed her, before he changed her life even though she was happy with how it was; risking her life daily with him, and being 'one of the boys' as the other privates called it, but he'd tut them down, adding that she was so much more, elevating her because she was better than one of the boys and she would try to blanch the blush on her cheeks.

"Wake up, Baby."

Then one day he told her that he loved her, and she rolled her eyes at him, not that he saw with his head buried between her breasts and his knees supporting her back. It was just an empty word thrown around during a moment of passion, something she is guilty of as well, but mostly makes her point known with the indents her fingernails and teeth leave in his flesh.

But then he said it to her one day, with no part of her milking it from him.

The word slipped from his mouth haphazardly, falling into the rubble of so many other words as he watched her flit around the room tidying his abandoned undies. He didn't notice it's appearance, his eyes back on the computer screen and his fingers clacking away. But she did, and she stood stunned for a moment, terrified because she shouldn't be the type of girl he loves, not respectable enough, more fling-type material.

Refused to go home with him the next night, and the next, until a week had passed. He opened the door to her room, huffing and puffing from her rejection, only she was in the midst of changing, her bareback to the door. Immediately, he apologized, his eyes dropping to scour the floor despite the fact that at this point, they'd slept together hundreds of times. She'd been more intimate with him than Qetesh had been with most of her lovers. The trust was there during sex. Knew what he wanted, knew his limits, and he could have her satiated in under ten if the need be.

But on a relationship front, the trust, the admiration, the love—a word she will not and does not say often or mean—was void. Felt that his love for her was more worship for her body, gratitude that they had a symbiotic relationship of getting each other off and eating pizza afterwards, that these feelings were misconstrued due to them being lonely workaholics.

"I came to see if you were okay."

She tugged a bra strap up, then the other, glancing over her shoulder at him. "I'm fine, Darling," she lied through her teeth, able to keep the calm façade.

"You're not sick, or upset, or just really tired or something?"

Yanked her camisole over her head and spun around. "No, I'm completely content."

"Okay—" his eyes narrowed at her response, but he took a step forward and she willed herself not to take a step back. "Did I do something then? Did I upset you in anyway?"

"No."

"Because I thought we were having a great time, then suddenly you don't want to come to my place, or my room, or want me in your r—"

"It's fine, Cameron."

"You can be upset. You're allowed to be upset. I'd just like to know what I did so we can work it out."

She stared at him, dumbfounded by his sincere words, by his patient attitude, something she'd never been graced with before in this manner, and although she still didn't trust him implicitly, although she still thought that his love was a lie or another masquerading emotion, she blinked way the idea of tears and beckoned him to her with a wave of her hand. "Come here, you beautiful man."

He didn't ask why, just approached her open arms willingly, his arms wrapping engulfing her as she sighed into the familiar scent of him, brushing her forehead against his shoulder. He peppered kisses quickly along her neck and to her cheek, to the tip of her nose, and then her lips, so fast in succession that she laughed, truthfully, giddily like a child.

"You all right?" His lips fluttered against her shoulder as he spoke, still holding her, and she felt his grin against her skin, felt proud that she'd created that.

"Yes." nodded, her cheek almost to his, her finger tracing his ear, rubbing the lobe. "Old habits, Darling, sometimes I just need to be alone."

"Next time just leave me a note or something." He planted one final kiss before pulling back, tucking a strand of hair behind her ear. "I'd hate to think I did something to make you so upset that you'd want to leave me."

"Baby, please."

And his voice is so broken, so pleading, that she gives up the solace of remaining only semiconscious, his and Daniel's conversations punctuated by the putt putt of Chippie's engine close enough to a lullaby to keep her asleep.

Cracks an eye and is immediately accosted by the bright glow of the torch offset on the wall behind him casting shadows across his face, making him look much older than he is. Frets about looking old, constantly dyeing out gray hairs and pinching skin that's lost it's tautness, skin she pinches for an entirely different reason.

There's a moment before his recognition of her, where she glimpses the worried expression he hides from her, the one that forms when she stands on kitchen chairs to reach their homemade Ketchup, or when she leaves to take a contract to keep her sane. Normally, she's only privy to his hard set brow and tightly crossed arms, the ones that remain that way until she fiddles in the hair there, tickling and grinning and sweet talking, stroking fingers over his jaw until he unclenches the muscles, unwraps his arms from his chest and bundles herself up in them instead. Now that her stomach is prominent enough, she pushes it against his side on 'accident', knowing the baby will defuse his irritation.

But she's never seen the worry before, and maybe she doesn't see it now, just a blink and it's gone into the soft acceptance of his arm cradling the back of her head, his free hand constricting one of hers, and he tries to laugh the tears away in his eyes, but in the light pulling at his age, she can see the twinkle of them.

Her hand reaches up, caresses the side of his face, the stubble that's starting to fill in itching at her fingertips. "It makes you look debonair."

He's so well put together without having to have been put together again. Without recycled sarcophagus trips and bathes in oils and petals and blood.

Her eyes fall closed again and her body tremors, or perhaps the space around her body tremors, shudders until she floats, until she's weightless in love and in light. Bouncing along in the car beside him as a soft summer breeze blows through the jeep, top down. Smelling the mountain meadows and the loamy soil from recent rains.

She fell asleep halfway through the drive because the music was what he called 'classic rock' and not loud enough that they couldn't hold a conversation, and the roads were paved so smoothly it was as if she was being rocked and sung to a gentle slumber.

Awoke sometime later to the sound of his car door slamming. Didn't jolt her, just eased her up from her nap, and as she patted at her sleep mussed hair, he set drinks in the cup holders.

"Shit, sorry Baby, I didn't mean to wake you." Plopped into the driver's side, fumbling with his seat belt. For as coordinated as he is at work, he can never buckle his belt within the first three tries.

"I'm sorry," hummed as she stretched out her arms, her back, wiggled her toes free of the sandals wedged under her seat. "I didn't mean to fall asleep, but the music was so soothing and—"

"No, I get it, I'm boring," he interrupted with mock hurt, readjusting the rear-view mirror and trying to hide the smirk she saw.

"No," gasped and unbuckled her belt, bringing her bare knees to the warm leather seat. "How could you be boring—" shuffled up against him, hugging her arms around of his, pressing her breasts against him "—when you have a gorgeous alien girlfriend?"

He groaned, rolled his eyes, and turned away from her, but she reeled him back, looking at the new additions to the cup holders. Wrapped an arm around his neck, nuzzling him with her cheek as she climbed side saddle onto the center console. "What have you brought for me?"

"Big Gulp Slushie." With her free hand she snatched the large cup, shoved it between her knees, and churned the straw in it as Cameron explained what the liquid was. When she took a sip from the humorously large straw, instantly the cold hit her mouth, followed by a burst of flavor, then just pure sugar.

"—I didn't know which one you'd want so I striped the colors in—"

Jammed the drink back into the proper holder and almost pounced on him from across the console. The sugar and this man. Him and a blast fruity goodness prickled her cheeks, and the way he always thought of her, even when there was no need to, always took huge steps to accommodate her, to show his adoration in methods beside the obvious.

"Honey—" tried to straddle his lap, and with each of her movements, his beckoning became more anxious. "Honey!" Slid a leg astride his, riding him no saddle, popped kisses along his neck and jaw, before she leaned back too far and depressed the horn.

With an obvious frown she scooted from his lap, slid her bum across the console, back into her now hot seat while he waved nervously at a mother who shielded her children from viewing them. They were still rather new at the sneaking around.

It was their first getaway together, their first time outside of Colorado Springs, roads she'd never traveled, scenery that went unseen. He was still adjusting to her playful outbursts and her limited knowledge of Tau'ri customs and manners. She was adapting to the knowledge that whenever he completed a nice gesture towards her her—told her she looked beautiful, complimented her on how quickly she picked up football, made her breakfast, or lunch, or supper, anything really—that he didn't want sex as a payment.

Curled into her seat, the sundress she wore, a pale yellow with little orange flowers stitched at the bottom, fell over her knees and a portion of her shins as she glanced at the rest stop through her window. "I'm sorry, it's how I know to show gratitude."

"Hey." His fingers skimmed her arm, wrapped around her hand and tugged her to face him. "When I do stuff for you, it's because I'm glad you're here with me, not because I want anything more than you out of it."

He pecked a kiss to her palm, stark blue eyes observed her so sweetly. She flitted her fingers to behind his ear, grinned at him. "You think I'm worthy of such—"

"That and more."

"Vala, Baby, you gotta open your eyes."

She does what he asks, because it's simple enough, should be, scooching from straddling the center console, letting him know, letting him in when there's still the fear of judgement, the act of having to appear nonchalant when she cares about his opinion, particularly of her. It's why she doesn't like to trust, what if she does the wrong thing and he—

"Hey Baby." Snuffles again, his thumb stroking over her cheek.

But she's not asleep against the passenger door, or in the mountain, or at their farmhouse, she's somewhere else, her head rests on one of their packs, and when she tries to sit up, white light, the same white light that One wrought upon them through his ruin exploration, bursts behind her eyes, destroying her balance, makes it hard to breathe

"Cameron—"

"Take it easy." Brushes her bangs from her eyes and helps her recline again. Her stomach roils all acid and empty but sitting so hard.

"Something—Something's not—"

"I know, Baby, I know." Offers her a grin through his tears, and it's frightening because it's a puzzle—there's a puzzle and there's a piece missing so she can't comprehend—doesn't comprehend—

Under her fisting stomach, the movement has ceased. There are no kicks to her kidney or her bladder. There is no light and airy breeze wafting around a little one—floating like her head in a sea of indistinguishable—flattens a palm to her stomach, rubbing, waiting, praying. A moment passes, then another, and her ribs are constricting, restricting her breathes and she's hot—so very h—"Cam—" pants out the curtail of his name "—I can't feel them. They're not—"

His head ducks closer, his nose outlines hers. "It's okay. Chappy said the baby is fine for now, but we need to help you so—"

He continues with his reassurances, his touch and voice calming, consoling—she can't smell him, his aftershave, his normal scent. Can't smell anything, but his voice is so gentle in her ear. He asks a question and she nods, not hearing anything but the cadence, the pitch, the song of his words. He nods back, releasing her, reaching over out of the corner of her sight.

The ground shudders, and it piques her interest momentarily, unusual, concerning, but then her vision, slightly globule, starts to clear and she discerns another one of those tubes just over his shoulder, but this one is different. This one is full. This one doesn't house a Daniel, but the face within is more familiar.

It is her own.


	8. From Just One

2 4 1

Chapter 8

From Just One

There's a way out of this because there's always a way out of it.

It's the only words he thinks of because anytime he allows himself to think of something else, he starts to break down like she's breaking down.

Thought that she was gone.

He rubs at her cheeks, caressing at first, trying to call her back, to just share a conversation with him, to help him figure out what to do, because they've always worked better as a team.

As a couple.

When she doesn't respond, not even the mumbling, creased brows she's given to him for the last fifteen minutes, he starts to press harder, only fueled on by her lack of an answer.

"She's dying, Jackson."

Drops his hand to her stomach, rubbing, wishing for once their stubborn kid would just kick, give him some hope—but they don't kick—and he's so tired of being the hopeful one, sweltering away inside form the pressure of always being optimistic when he's scared as shit.

"There has to be a way," Jackson's voice is strong, but peters out at the room quakes, as the other Vala floats calmly in a tube, undisturbed for an unknown amount of years.

And it doesn't matter.

This woman knows nothing. Doesn't know who he is, or the good Vala has done in all the years he's known her, and he'll be damned if they're gonna wake her up now and take all that away from his wife, from him, from their baby, when they all worked so hard to be here.

"Maybe there's a way to help her back at the SGC?"

It doesn't matter who this woman was—sure it's real shitty that she's been tubed for so long, and that she'll never get to have her life back—as long as he's conscious enough to stop her—but she's a stranger to him.

Only looks like Vala.

She might not like football, or she may pay too much attention to labelled switches above the sink, or she might not pester him enough for a royal purple guest room—when he finally did paint a room purple for the baby—after she left and he was afraid she wasn't coming back—she even acknowledge it, didn't clasp her hands together in delight like he thought she would.

He just wants to go back to how it was before they had to flee from Earth, before he wanted to live in her pocket to make sure she was safe, and warm, satiated, and loved.

"Mitchell, in case you haven't noticed, the ruins are collapsing—"

"In case you haven't noticed, we're—" he gestures at his wife, his baby, himself "—not going anywhere."

Now he's ready to accept it—to be together as a family—no matter what that means.

The room gives a large quake, some dust and bits of stone tumble down from the ceiling, and he leans over her, letting the pebbles spike against his back, protecting her for as long as he can.

"Chippie," Jackson's shouting at the shuddering ceiling, his eyes going glassy as he realizes exactly what's happening. "Chippie!"

He never should have agreed to come, he should have put his foot down—only, she was depressed, and he knew it.

 _:) —#Dr. Daniel Jackson. Lieutenant Colonel Camer—#_

Giving up her freedom despite however long of a leash he gave her.

"Chippie is there a way to help Vala?"

Giving up her family, despite making a new one with him.

 _:) —#Simply release Vala Mal Doran from the capsule—#_

Jackson was right, she would always be anchored to him now, and maybe she wasn't made to be that way, when he obviously was.

"Releasing her will kill our Vala." Jackson holds his fists tightly at his side, like he might actually hit the CRTV made out of stone. "How do we save _our_ Vala?"

* * *

A month into making the farmhouse their new home, her need for action, her inability to sit still kicked in. He was able to counteract it with random trips to the market, with walks to the city just over an hour away, with surprising lunchtime picnics in a barren field, and late summer nights spent combing the night sky with constellations he didn't know a damn thing about while she calmly curled into his side, not caring about the difference in the way the stars spread out.

But it was only a temporary fix, like putting a bandage over a bullet wound.

Happened when they were making the bed—actually he was making the bed because she never does, not army born, the need for tight sheets not ingrained in her genes—the fitted sheet already wrinkleless, he flapped out the flat sheet, and watched the curtains flutter with the gust it made.

"Be careful, Darling." She warned, her back to him, fingers scrolling through the dresser for another shirt—this was during the week or two she felt uncomfortable in most shirts. Ended up wearing a lot of his t-shirts, but she still scratched uncontrollably, enough to keep her up at night—or add to what was keeping her up at night.

He can't describe what happened next, because he knows he heard her warning, remembers hearing her warning, but something made him flick his wrists with extra aggression, just to prove her wrong. The queen-sized sheet flapped through the air again, this time knocking the only thing on her nightstand to the ground.

The picture frame hit with a crash and immediately shards of glass skittered over the floor. He dropped the sheet in time to see the disenchanted expression bloom on her face, to see the shirt in her hand abandoned half out of the drawer.

He held up his hand to halt her because she's always barefoot—never wore shoes or socks before, but now sometimes her feet swell so she has an actual excuse—kept the colonel's command in his voice as he directed, "Stay over there, there's glass all over the—"

It escalated pretty quickly from there.

Patience hadn't exactly been overflowing in the house lately. They were dealing with being suddenly roommates—spouses—full-time when before they had separate dorm rooms to go for solitude. He had to deal with a thigh that started killing him the moment they set foot on Thea because of the atmosphere, she dealt with congestion, he tried to make himself useful while her body ached and changed with pregnancy, his anxiety hit the roof whenever he couldn't find her and he sometimes checked for her every ten minutes to put himself at ease, and she yearned for the freedom that's always taken from her—this time the mobility, the adventurous lifestyle.

They both missed Earth, their old lives, and their friends at the SGC, which was evident when she lost her mind when her photo broke.

He didn't just break the glass, but the picture tore—one of the team at a bar downtown on one of their post-mission celebrations. Everyone very happy, and definitely drunk, and it was one of the Jackson's ideas to have the bartender take their picture as a huddled group. At some point she just stole the photo.

She cried, then switched straight into a rage he's never seen because usually her anger pops in one comment and she leaves to stew alone. But she kept going, kept talking, kept screaming until she was out of breath. Yelled so hard, and for so long he actually stopped talking, not to listen to her words, but out of concern.

Finally, when she was done, she set herself on the edge of the bed, her hand on the flimsy floral camisole shrouding her stomach—one she'd borrowed from Sam before her last stint on Atlantis—the only one that wasn't itchy.

With tears and pinched lips, she glared at him. Her expression softened, not from understanding or forgiveness, but fatigue.

"I don't know if I can do this, Cameron." Spoke the words directly to him as she stroked her stomach—their kid—and shook her head.

He was almost frantic, sitting on the bed next to her, his hands anywhere he could touch—anywhere she would let him—because she could get up and leave anytime she wanted and if she didn't let him follow he was fucked.

Eventually calmed her while he freaked out in his head. He always manages to settle her, and he doesn't know if it's because he has a way with words or because she surrenders enough to let him.

It ended with him kissing her, holding her as she nodded against him. She didn't say much more to him. Just got up, and carefully lowered herself to kneel on the ground, starting to pick up the shards of glass.

And he understood what it was like to break a person.

She didn't interact with him very much for the rest of the day. Flitted around the house doing light cleaning, then outside to weed the flower beds and clear away some of the brush while he stayed in and fixed a dinner she only picked at.

He held her extra tight that night and she was stiff, she was uncomfortable and trapped, but didn't complain because she spent two decades buried inside her own body. Didn't complain because for ten months she was stuck on an unfamiliar planet in a different galaxy, pregnant with a baby she didn't initially want, but intended to have.

How the hell was this situation any different.

"What do you need." His lips moved against the side of her neck as he curled up behind her, slid his arms around her, guiding her back towards him. "Tell me what you need to be happy?"

Without missing a beat, without acknowledging his hands or his body against her, in a sad whisper she told him, "I need to go away."

And she did.

It was only for a little more than a day, but he almost tore up the woodwork. Almost re-landscaped the entire dusty exterior of their house. Intended on painting the porches, but he kept checking over his shoulder for her shadow waddling through the fields. Kept the walkie with him at all times in case she needed anything.

In case she missed him.

Managed to prime the guest room—soon to be nursery—but she never gave him a clear answer on what color she wanted it. Wouldn't give him a hint if she felt their baby was more a boy or a girl.

So, he painted it the purple she requested so long ago.

He could always paint over it if she didn't like it.

That night, when he couldn't sleep in a big, cold, empty bed, he grabbed his glasses and sat at the kitchen table trying to tape her shredded picture back together.

Sat on the porch after lunch the next day and opened his third baby book. He hates reading because he has to put on his grandpa glasses again, but the winds were humid, and his peppermint tea helped him settle into the swing.

Heard her crunching through the fields he never managed to hoe like he said he would.

Felt the warmth of her grin like a sunbeam before he saw it through thick bifocal lenses.

Still had on that outfit she left in, a black t-shirt under a brown leather jacket and a baby that was getting harder and harder to hide. She looked beautiful, a few smudges on her cheek, but delighted as she ran to him and hooked her arms around his neck, kissing him before he had a chance to launch into his barrage of questions.

That's how she got back into being a free agent.

How he had to let her, because the probability of her getting hurt while in the field was smaller than the probability of her leaving him permanently if she didn't have her ability to run.

* * *

"Mitchell!"

He's telling her stories.

The first road trip they took together where she kept falling asleep in the passenger's seat, and he kept glancing over, falling more in love with her.

The time they went on a mission to an off-world club and it went so south so quick.

That one time those red panties that drive him wild made his favorite running shirt pink—he still wears it.

"Mitchell!"

"What?"

"Chippie knows how to save her."

* * *

Once he almost lost her—he's almost lost her at least once a day for the past eight years, little things that could happen if just one simple aspect of their lives changed. Made him become hyperaware of everything—of what she ate for breakfast, of if she tied her boots, of if the P-90 she was using was recently in for a cleaning.

Practiced this overprotection way before he had officially fallen head over heels for her and the way she walked in those perfect hip hugging BDUs that he still thinks she special orders because they fit her so damn well.

He was still team leader back then.

There was only one Daniel back then.

It was right after Sam left for her first stint in Atlantis, right before he hit the glass ceiling of field duty and switched to the big boy chairs upstairs.

It was one of the last missions they were on officially as SG-1 and it still haunts him.

They'd been dating about four months, not so many frequent sleepovers off base, but she was spending a lot of time in his room at night watching football, or stealing the remote and putting on some funniest video clips show and bouncing on the other side of his mattress until something stirred in him.

They were called for protection duty—what they really wanted was just a few seconds of alone time with one particular ancient artifact which belonged to the owner of a popping club in one of the more technologically advanced planets they'd been to, but the owner was having a hard time paying for security detail and—they just wanted some pictures of the damn artifact and it turned into a whole thing.

It was one of his only undercover stings—sure he'd pretended to be a bounty hunter, or part of the Lucien Alliance, but this was a real undercover mission. Teal'c was acting as a bouncer, Jackson and Vala as a couple at the bar, and him as the bartender, because everyone else said they didn't have enough experience pouring drinks into glasses.

Each of them was still packing and ready in the dark atmosphere of the club, black lights, a fog machine, strobe lights, and heavy booming music ready for a Friday night.

And she—she looked amazing.

That didn't even begin to cover it.

Tight purple leopard print pants and a black shirt that sort of hung off her shoulder. He had no idea where she was packing because he could see every curve of her and he remembers thinking how out of his league she was, before remembering that they'd been dating for months.

He mostly cleaned glasses and served the odd drink, while Teal'c remained stationary by the door, grunting out answers to the questions he covertly spoke into his watch while he scratched behind his ear. Vala would shuffle closer to Jackson, and Jackson would shuffle away, then she would snarl something between her teeth clenched in a wide grin, and Jackson would sigh and throw his arm over her shoulders.

Jackson rolled his eyes at him.

Vala did too, and it made him blush a bit, duck his grin away while he cleaned his fiftieth cup of the night.

She got Jackson out onto the dance floor. Doesn't know how she does it, if the rhythm is natural or something ingrained in her—leftover from Qetesh—but her body moves without trying, almost hypnotic.

Jackson, a little flustered, excused himself to investigate a meeting happening in the owner's office.

Vala picked her way back through the crowd to the bar.

He had a water ready for her—lemon slice on the side. Her face glistened with sweat, her hair was wild about her face, and he hated that they were on duty because there were some very complex things he wanted to do with her body in the employee bathroom.

Instead, as the heavy bass beat thumped inside his head, he reached forward and tugged a strand of her hair from where it pasted to her lip gloss and tried to match the brightness of her grin.

But the moment they shared ended prematurely as a new wave of mist shot out of the fog machines, but instead of being cotton candy scented, it knocked them all out cold.

When they woke up, Vala and every other woman at the club was gone.

The club was a guise for a sex trafficking ring, and he doesn't know how none of them saw it.

Maybe she did.

Maybe she wanted to say something but knew all of them would shoot her down just for a chance to spend an hour with an artifact he doesn't remember the name of—an object that didn't even matter.

It took them less than a day to track her, of course his memory rushes the process, leaving out the bathroom he trashed, the owner he punched until Teal'c escorted him from the room and came back with a location in less than a minute, or how he went through a revolving door of blaming himself, then Daniel, then Teal'c, then himself again.

They did catch the guy, he did a full out action move jump over the ledge of a second-floor balcony and landed on him. It probably looked pretty awesome, and when he punched the guy maybe one more time than was acceptable, it felt better than awesome.

But the whole thing hurt his thigh.

They found her a little bit late, but on time.

She was handcuffed to a bed and heavily drugged but managed to take out three of the guards before they brought her down. Reluctantly, he handed her off to Teal'c to take back home safely. Jackson and him remained behind until back-up arrived and helped contact family members of the other women.

What he really focuses on is the next night—after Lam released her for a few more days of rest. He gave the team the same amount off to catch up on paperwork and explain to the IOA how so many of those sex trafficking assholes ended up so badly beaten—a little after nine, she shuffled into his room, wearing an oversized nightshirt and sweats, her hair going frizzy from a recent shower.

The sight of her made him push himself up on the bed because he started to slide down while watching the late-night show. "Vala, you should—"

She shook her head and mounted his bed, moved very slowly, like she was still hindered, the opposite of how she appeared on the dance floor. She nudged his legs apart a bit, and climbed into his lap, sitting sideways, resting her head to his bare chest with a sigh.

"I need to be right here."

He sighed too, shaky emotional—tried to focus on her, cold in his arms, pulling his bad thigh into her own lap and using her thumbs to massage the tight muscles.

Initially, they didn't speak.

He just closed his eyes, listened to the audience laughter at some punk kid he didn't know. Felt the sensation of his muscles relaxing for the first time since they got back despite two ice bathes and using a heating pad.

"Daniel told me you aggravated your old injury."

"Yeah." Cheek smooshed to the top of her head and his arms closed around her, held her to him, felt her breathing, her muscles twitch, and knew that if they got the wrong intel she would be gone now.

"He also told me you beat the bastard behind this thing near to death."

"Wish Teal'c didn't stop me."

"Hmm."

Couldn't tell if she sounded upset or pleased from the neutral hum.

He tucked her hair behind her ear, like he did in the bar, but pressed his lips to her temple and felt the tug of those muscles in a grin.

"What about your squeaky-clean record as Mr. Military Man?"

"Hmm."

Held his lips in the kiss and didn't know whether his own hum was approving or disapproving.

Maybe just neutral.

The whole thing was just neutral.

Rested his hand on her thigh, her fingers worked as diligently as ever.

"Sometimes it's good not to be that transparent."

"Cameron." She released his thigh with a rueful smile. "While I appreciate the chivalrous nature behind your actions, they're hardly worth—"

"They are. You always are. If we showed up a minute too late—"

"But you didn't."

"But a minute is all it would've taken—"

"But I'm here." Her hands gripped either side of his face, but it wasn't accusatory, wasn't shaming or celebrating, just there—neutral—just like her spoken words.

She grinned and nudged the tip of his nose with her own. "I'm right here."

His thumb strummed over the bandage on her forearm, the opposite side of her elbow, where those assholes pumped so many drugs into her that Lam said she was comatose, and her regaining consciousness depended on them weaning her off the drugs slowly.

If all the pieces of the mission didn't fall into place perfectly, without hesitation, then she might be somewhere else, not in the safety of the SGC, might be in someone else's bed and not wanting to be.

He leaned his forehead to hers, closing his eyes and savoring the feel of her with him, her cool soft skin, the grin she wears to try to be optimistic because so much shit is thrown at her and she bounces back up and keeps going.

She just keeps going and he has no clue how she keeps doing it.

"You're right here." Finally sighed into the side of her neck, pulled her back against him as he slid down the headboard.

She giggled, wrapped her legs around his, and nuzzled against him as he drew the covers up over them. He didn't sleep at all, just stayed still, waited, because if he closed his eyes, she would be gone.

* * *

There's a way out because there has to be a way out.

Holds her sort of set in his lap, her arms and legs wilting, her body wracked with shudders, hair stringy and damp from sweat—the only thing that's normal is their baby—still silent, still sticking out like a sore thumb.

She hasn't said a word in nearly an hour.

She doesn't have another hour left.

He's terrified to be without her, without them, to have the quilted ideologies in his head torn apart before he could even finish knitting them together, before he could get excited about first words—which is obviously going to be mama—first steps, teaching football, teaching baseball because she's already requested he do it half a dozen times—sometimes he thinks it's one of the only things she's looking forward to and—

She doesn't have another hour.

 _:{ —#Are you ready Lieutenant Colonel Cameron Mitchell?#_

There is a way to save her.

It's not ideal.

But it _will_ save her.

Save them.

It will also destroy the ruins, which Jackson didn't say shit about.

But like all good things, an equal sacrifice is needed, and unfortunately, it's him.

Him for her and their baby—it seems like a steal of a deal. Volunteered before Chappie finished explaining that the Ancients installed a fail-safe which would destroy the ruins, and circumvent the protocol affecting all the clones—

She was never a clone to him.

Even after he found out, it sounds cruel, but he can't give two shits about a woman in a tube when he has everything he's ever wanted in his arms. If only she'd—

Her limp hand stirs against the arm holding her, her eyes barely open, but when they do, the whites are more of a yellow, and they roll back in her head because she's too exhausted to focus.

"Hi Honey." Greets her like it's any other morning but chokes out a strangled sob, ignoring what needs to be done. Just proud of her for waking up.

"Ca—Cam—" Lids keeps fluttering, her eyes rolling, her skin gray and green and a little bit yellow, but trying to listen to him, trying to figure out what's going on.

Her fingers twitch against his arm, attempting to rise, but she can't, so he delicately lifts her hand, wet and cold, against his cheek and tries his best not to break down. "I—uh—I have to go."

Watches her face contort in either misunderstanding, or pain, and God, it's making him sick. "Ca—m?"

"You're going to feel better soon though." Grins, kissing her forehead, lingering his lips and she's lost her smell, the one he wakes up to that calms him, the one that smells like home. "You and the baby are gonna be fine."

She nods, just barely, and he finds solace in her relief. "I need you to do me some favors though—"

"Mitchell—" Jackson's face looks broken, pale and sweaty as he interrupts, not wanting to.

He just nods, shortening his list of demands. "Don't blame yourself. You didn't do anything wrong. Try to lay off the free agent crap—this kid is really gonna need you—and please don't name them after me, you're more creative than that."

Finishes with a kiss against her lips, chapped but still memorable.

She grins, not understanding, not cognizant, but hearing him and feeling happy, and with a quick hand he wipes the tears from his face, before dropping it to her stomach. "Make sure you listen to your mom—I—I wish I could be there kiddo."

She's unconscious again, barely breathing and her pulse is weak.

It's time for him to go.

He pillows her head against his pack, the one with almost everything in it because he didn't want her to overexert herself, because he was so afraid to come here and now he knows why. Covers her with his jacket, the one she said he looked good in, but didn't want them to match, when they always did.

Two pieces fitting together to complete each other, to be stronger.

Two pieces to create someone perfect.

Tries to clear his eyes, his head, his heart and jabs a finger in Jackson's direction as he ambles by towards the sacrificial heart of the ruins. "You watch out for them."

"Mitchell, let me—"

"Promise me you'll watch out for them."

"No one even knows I'm back, I could—"

But the words die in Jackson's mouth, buried underneath otherworldly screeching, the sound of metal, gears impacting something, being crushed up. The sound unbearable, almost animal in nature, painful cries mashed in with metallic whirs.

The energy within the pit starts to bubble and froth, unhappy with what it consumed, a long, low rumble quakes through the ruins, tearing up the writing on the walls and cracking the floor

Within the gorge of energy powering the ruins, a shower of light blasts free. All he can see is a black screen looking up at him, an emoticon smiley face plastered there, before it cracks in half and blinks away.


	9. With Guts

_A/N:_ _Please note that this chapter contains 'flashbacks' to some of the preceding story, Bring it all Back, therefore the details of mentioned missions are truncated, because it was written with the presumption that that story would have already been read._

2 4 1

Chapter 9

With Guts

She fought, which probably surprised most of them, but not him.

He wasn't there.

Woke to bright light, only to wrench her eyes shut again.

One look and she knew where she was, after all, she spent enough time in this medical bay during her SGC career to recognize it by scent. Whether injured herself, or waiting for him after he was injured, it was almost like a second home when she really had none.

Had one actually, a cozy little two-bedroom house with a backyard big enough for him to let her live out her gardening whims. Welcoming until every time she saw the bare second bedroom she became doubtful about the being growing in her, remembering Athena, her sneer, her men and their strong hands. Being broken and pieced together with the hand device until hearing Muscles's deep voice calming her as she cried out for Cameron.

He wasn't there.

Just like the channels below the ruins, running low on light and high on dust, housing a specific tank with a very specific body that rendered her null.

She's fake, manufactured, and shouldn't even exist.

The last thing she saw was her own younger face staring wide-eyed back through the glass tube.

A harbinger of things to come.

How she should deflate and ooze out all her innards, how her viscera would run through the grooves in the stone flooring like tiny tributaries taking away whatever was instinctively her, but it never was her at all.

She was always masquerading as someone else, whether she intended to or not.

Thought she carried the burden well—went downhill around the time that a Daniel burst at her touch, leaving her stranded in the pitch-black hallway, covered in bits of her best friend, and crying for her husband.

He wasn't there.

Woke to the force of an object in her throat, full and choking her. As she struggled against it, a strangely soft-spoken Dr. Lam asked her nicely not to remove the tube she'd troubled so hard to get into her throat, which she ignored until a Daniel—how many are there now?—held her arms, not restraining, just distracting.

"Mitchell just went to take a shower." Fingers wrung around her wrist. She tried not to equate the grip to Athena's men looming over her, instead darting her eyes around the room, finding Dr. Lam staring tensely at her, and a few unknown nurses. Daniel released the hold on her arms, one hand sliding into hers. "We told him to take a shower. He—he really needed to take a shower."

Eventually, Dr. Lam removed the tube.

She helped by breathing out and being in intense, awkward pain for a few moments and then promptly throwing up into a basin which one of the nurses produced at an accelerated speed.

"You had us pretty scared, Vala." Dr. Lam stooped before her, shining a light into her eyes, waving it back and forth.

She didn't understand, she didn't care.

She doesn't know if she has the right to be called Vala, she is assuredly no one else, but she's just a cheap imitation.

Just something else she stole.

"The extent of your injuries was so severe, that we had to put you into a medically induced coma to help you recover." Lam's face remained tight as she continued to examine her, waggling a finger before her eyes.

"You've been under for a little over two weeks," Daniel chirped from over the doctor's shoulder, a smile on his face, but it didn't reach his eyes. "Mitchell has barely left the room. I sent someone to go get—"

A familiar thump snatched her attention, the feeling of tiny feet punting into her kidney oddly refreshing while simultaneously terrifying. The baby is Cameron's, the fear ceded while others remain, but another issue arose.

How can she be pregnant if she is not real?

Blinked back to Daniel and Lam rapidly firing questions at her: What was wrong? Did she feel okay? Was she going to throw up again? Was there any pain?

"They—" her voice hoarse, her throat inflamed, she placed her hand against her stomach, surprised to find herself much rounder. Two weeks gone, stolen from her as she has stolen so much from others "—kicked."

"I did an emergency ultrasound when you came in, but the baby is perfectly healthy. You have a little fighter in there. Can you squeeze my hand?"

Did as Lam requested, wrapped her fingers around the doctor's dry, tepid palm. Lam nodded in approval and leaned her head back to check the numbers on the nearest machine.

They cannot comprehend how much of a fighter this child is.

Strong from the moment of their conception and during her prolonged, still somewhat present crisis of deciding if she is passable enough to be a mother.

* * *

Validated her poor parenting skills by stating all her bad attributes over and over, until she decided it was stupid to argue with herself if she wasn't pregnant all. Although she was off-world, the planet had to have means to determine if she was.

"Oh, I didn't see you there, Dear," the chemist chuckled as he turned away from sorting various herbs and concoctions. "How can I help you?"

"I need to go about seeing—"

She didn't know how to phrase it.

On Earth she could simply go to Dr. Lam or ask Cameron to take her to the grocery store. Those tests took less than three minutes, she knew so, she'd done them before. There had never been any real reason to worry—a few late blood shows, a few days of mission fatigue feared to be something else—the tests had never resulted in anything except her quickly taking out the washroom garbage with a grin and distracting Cameron with caresses and kisses if he asked questions.

Back home, she could simply go into his washroom and lift up the loose tile behind the toilet where she hid a spare test. Their home, where he let her plant bulbous-headed golden flowers in the backyard that reminded her of her mother, where he had oranges in the fridge for her every morning, where he bought her a mug to leave there that he didn't use.

She never did plan on staying long.

After Daniel made his intentions of a non-evolving friendship clear, she conspired to leave, but Cameron complained his team was too small and good members were hard to come by. So, she had agreed to stay until the end of the year which gave him enough time to find acceptable replacements. Find whoever he was searching for, which was apparently her. Hopefully only her, and not anyone who snuck in under the lines.

The chemist listened to her words with wide eyes and a blank expression that quickly swapped to one of warm understanding. "Oh." He turned, shuffling in the concoctions behind him and produced a few crushed leaves that he wiped onto a scrap of paper. He brought out a pin, dipped it in a liquid, and then held it between his pinched fingers. "Hand please."

"I'm not entirely sure—"

"I know, Dear, that's why we're doing the test." He gestured for her hand, which she set palm up in his. Swiftly, he jabbed the pad of her index finger, and while she hissed, he dragged her finger over the shavings left by leaves.

She waited, patiently, alternating between watching the paper, which stayed stained red with her blood, and the old man's face as he nodded. "Congratulations."

"What—what do you mean congratulations?" She dragged her eyes back up to him and raised an eyebrow. "Nothing happened."

"Exactly." The chemist cleared the materials off the counter and into a bin beside him. "If you weren't with child, your blood would've been absorbed by the shavings—"

She reached forward, trying to grab the lip of the bin to retrieve the makeshift test. "Well, maybe we haven't given it enough time—"

"The reaction would have been instantaneous, my Dear." He licked at his lips, his brows heavying as his voice became softer. "You do remember the history of our fair planet, do you not?"

She tried to center her, to settle the booming thump of her heart. The test must be wrong, it had to be, she'd done several over the course of their nearing five-year relationship, and never a positive once. What were the odds that—

"Our men never used to be beacons of virility, but since the fertility incantation was strung up hundreds of years ago, our population thrives." He tugged off his glasses, rubbing them against an unstained area of his apron and tutted a bit. "They really should have taught you that in school."

"I'm not from your planet," she mumbled staring at the blank counter space.

"Oh, well, they should really have a notice about it." He grinned, almost in triumph as he placed his glasses back on the bridge of his nose. "Besides, a child is always a blessing."

"Yes. Of course." Rolled her lips together, swallowed harshly and continued, "but say this certain child wasn't a blessing. Say—"

"Oh, my words no—" he shot back from their conversations, eyes full of disbelief as he shook his head, his chins trembled in the motion. "All forms of gestation termination are completely forbidden."

Before she could argue that was a phrase she'd heard quite often and always found a run around for, his hand covered hers, and he patted several times. "Remember that no child is forced upon you, but always gifted."

* * *

The next mission was on a planet she had experience on, one she had slunk around on before, but had not done enough harm to be blacklisted from it. When night fell, she returned to her inn room early, broke out the window, and trailed the shadows through the damp alleyways until arriving at the backdoor of the address she was given.

The exchange was wordless.

She placed the currency into the old woman's hands and in return, had a small vial thrust into hers.

She could have talked to Cameron about it. Debated with him on all the downfalls of raising this child: losing their jobs, her not being a Earth citizen and therefore placing the child in jeopardy, the hundreds of missions that would remain incomplete because of their lack of participation, their absence from the team, how she woke with the silhouettes of men crackling around her, how Athena, those men, and worse threats are still out there, waiting for her to resurface so they can inflict more damage.

She sat at the pub, her fingers curled around a mug of ale that never made it to her lips and stared at the tiny purple vial. She'd never purposefully done it before. Didn't have the resources to with Qetesh when child after child didn't meet her standards and—intended to with Adria because it wasn't her choice, she wasn't even asked, and after all the hours she spent ill, and tired, and talking to her stomach, her daughter was taken.

Over all the years, this relationship was her most stable despite being constructed on their ability to navigate the hallways and cameras in the early morning, and barefaced lie to teammates and superiors.

Stared at the vial, dark purple, like how she wanted to paint his spare room, and after five years, he's almost cracked.

Then she thought about the dark curtains billowing against their bedroom window, while he petted a hand through her hair and hugged her to him, while she sobbed and watched the fabric sway in the fan's breeze.

Didn't want to tell him because he's able to sway her to do things. Thinks so highly of her, that it's not even flattering, it's off putting.

Knew he would debate the pros of having this child: the tiny boots and sets of baby clothing, little dresses, overalls, and bucket hats that she sometimes wandered away from him in department stores to go admire.

The amalgamation of them staring up at her from suckling against her breast.

Something created from their love.

She shoved the chair away with a huff and left the ale and the vial on the table, because she had to tell him.

For as much as he thought of her, she needed to live up to that ideal.

* * *

He reacted more positively than she predicted.

Asked her to marry him and then chuckled, his mouth a wide and goofy grin. He embraced her, ensconced her, kissed her, and caressed her all while blurting out how happy he was, how they would make this work, how this was amazing, how she was amazing, how much he loved her and—before he spoke of their unborn child, he noticed her rigidity and pulled back, the mirth draining from his face.

"You don't want it, do you?"

"I don't know what I want."

And she did because she bought the vial.

And she didn't because she left it sitting on that table.

* * *

He asked her if she was doing this for him.

If she put up with the life growing within her for his wants.

His hand grazed her stomach so lightly, like the baby would shy away from his touch—but she'd been pretty adamant about not recognizing the life within her, until it become adamant that it be recognized.

The child had been with her through so much in the last three months. Been her backup and partner on missions where the Daniels buddied together and left her to break into a building or do reconnaissance.

The baby was the unjudging ear when she wept to them about their existence and then wept harder because she felt guilty.

This child was strong and refused to be deterred by her constant negative moods, or her recriminations, or a bullet graze, or the resurgence of a Goa'uld host vacated from her body ten years earlier.

They stayed strong, and silent, and unperturbed within her and she knew they were strong enough to deserve a chance.

* * *

When she felt the first flutter of life, the first bolt of excitement—falling leaves and popping bubbles—with a hint of an unsettled stomach, she dropped the dish she was drying.

"What's wrong?" Cameron's dish clattered back into the sink, didn't crack against the floor as hers had.

His empty hands raised and dropped, trying to determine what exactly she was experiencing and the gravity of it.

Her hands rested against her stomach, trying to feel the movement again, but she could only hold it within her. The oddest sensation as Adria never moved, the perfect foetus, but this one, this little one was popcorn since the beginning.

Finally, he tipped her chin up, directed her sight away from her stomach, now straining in the black top that had done so well to hide her figure.

"Vala, Honey, talk to me here."

"I'm fine, Darling." Cupped a hand over his cheek and grinned, bringing his other hand to rest where hers were. "They're moving."

"Move—They're moving? Already?" Breathlessly laughed with a glimmer in his eyes she'd never seen before. Pressed his hand harder into her stomach, desperate to feel what she did, to experience their child as she did.

"I think it's too early for you to feel it."

"No—" he kissed the side of her neck, giving her a shiver and a squeal as she hid behind her shoulder. "I just think this kid is already playing favorites."

Had hardly ever been anything remotely cast as a 'favorite', except, perhaps in her mother's eyes. But when her mother left, she developed the need of putting herself first, of loving herself because no one else would, of lying and being greedy with her trust because when she allowed people to know her, when she became fond of others, they hurt her.

They left her.

It was easier to lie.

Easier to run.

* * *

He's here.

Runs into the room, slipping across the floor with still damp bare feet he fled the shower with. His grey t-shirt clings to his chest with stains making it appear as though he's sweat up a storm from sprinting up three floors. There are beads of water dripping from his hair and onto his shoulders, dotting the gray fabric darker, speckling away his concern as his tight face relaxes upon viewing her.

"Thank God." He squirms by a nurse and elbows Daniel out of the way.

She's fairly certain this is the original Daniel, as he's cheekier and less emotive than Daniel Two, who is still unfortunately Daniel Two.

Cameron yanks her to him, an arm around her shoulders, clamping her in close, a hand cradling the back of her head as he laughs through tears he's fighting to keep hold of, red-faced and sobbing while he repeats, "thank God."

She remains indifferent, her legs working hard to keep her balance and her arms pinned at her side, unsure if she just doesn't move from the muscle fatigue of laying supine for so long, or if she actively chooses not to participate.

Dr. Lam shares a brief grin with her over Cameron's shoulder. "I have a few more tests to run. Why don't I go set them up why you two talk?"

What are they supposed to converse about? How her mother's exit and her father's betrayal really means absolutely nothing because they didn't create her?

She's not a product of a strained marriage brought to fruition because her mother was lonely and thought a child might settle her father, whom with seven other children, always proclaims, 'he loves a baby'.

She's the result of ruins powered by Ancient hubris, on needing to accomplish more in a smaller amount of time.

She's someone's backup and she was not meant to survive.

"Are you okay?" His sweaty palms lay flat on either side of her face and he's planted himself on the edge of the bed along her legs. "How are you feeling?"

His question isn't concern for her torn psyche or the existential crisis brewing inside of her, but to her physical health. Her ability to respond to him and breath on her own simultaneously, to keep a conversation without nodding off from fatigue.

To healthy carry a fetus to term.

His question is directed to the life he's been attached to since the moment he knew it was present.

"Tired."

"That's good. That's good." Speaks fast, smile still smacked onto his face as he catches her hand and brings it to his lips. "I mean it's not good." Lips motor against her fingers, the clamp there. There are tubes in her other arm as well, and she can hardly shift on the bed without becoming uncomfortably entangled. "I mean it's not good, but it's good that you're not in any pain."

"I supp—"

He kisses her, before she can stop it, before she understands what's going on. His lips, warm and plush and little moist, pluck hers up and if there's any acrid taste in her mouth, any split and dried skin on her lips, he doesn't show any indication.

She follows along like she doesn't remember how their tempo goes, like they haven't spent hundreds of Sundays in bed together, rolling around, exploring each other, like she hasn't taught him exactly what she likes.

He breaks the kiss, resting his head against hers, whispering, "I was so scared. So fucking scared—I know we've been through some hardcore stuff together, but—"

Pulls back from her just as she's accepted the comfort of his proximity, her eyes blinking open harshly at the void he left. Instead his hand falls to her stomach, buried under blue scrubs, a sheet, and a woven blanket—the one from his bed, the one she always said keeps her warm.

"—I was so scared I was going to lose both of you."

A reminder that this child is his first and her uncountable.

Sired many children, all of whom she outlived, none of whom she was able to hold, and love, and kiss.

Whom she swore allegiance to, promised to protect while they were inside of her and then had them ripped from her in a blink after birth.

Whom she cried for because they suffered for her lack of mothering.

"To lose both of you—"

Swore to this child that they would be safe, that they wouldn't be born in the pseudo captivity of a military mountain complex.

She is back where she spent almost ten years of her life, on a planet with a government who doesn't respect her despite the multiple sacrifices she's made, despite viewing her as an ally.

Her brain has been scrambled, only this time she's retained her memories and is solidly sure of two things.

For the first time, she is completely aware of who and what she is, and what this means to her.

She is a fake, a fraud, a falsity when she's spent her entire life proving that she could be more.

She is also painfully aware that she's in captivity now.

"I wouldn't know what to do."

To say Cameron loves this child is an understatement, but how could he love her after knowing she's inauthentic.

After all the barbs he's slung at the Daniels over the years.

How he sees them as easily replaceable.

"I wouldn't know who I am anymore."

To say she is terrified of becoming a mother, is an understatement.

Mulls it over as Cameron continues to talk, to make jokes, to clean up the side table full of tissues, various newspapers, and a worn copy of Alice in Wonderland. He adjusts the pillows behind her and hands her the one for between her legs.

All things he does for his child because she is unreal.

A thump within her alerts her back, confirms her plan, as agreeable as a nod.

She knows what she must do.

He falls into place, hugging her tightly, kissing the side of her neck and telling her that they're done being active, done fighting for things that may never concern them, how idle threats could remain idle forever. Speaks of the SGC has offered them amnesty for as long as they wish.

"I think we should stay until you're fully recovered." He snaps out the blanket of wrinkles and tucks it around her to keep her warm. "Lam said that even though the baby is healthy, that what happened did put a strain on them."

"Yes, we don't want to stress them unnecessarily." She nods, the words robotic from her mouth as he leans in for another kiss, his growing beard scratching at her skin.

And she knows she has to run.


	10. With Glam

2 4 1

Chapter 10

With Glam

At first all he sees is their reflections.

Vala laying on the cot, black t-shirt rolled up to under her breasts, back propped up a bit as Dr. Lam squirts some gel onto her stomach. She jumps at the temperature, her hand twitching within his as he sits beside her, starting at small font on a black screen, and he's never been so nervous in his life. Not when flying, not when marching through the gate—although, maybe just as nervous as when she doesn't come back from missions on time.

He squeezes her hand back and immediately her fingers fall slack.

Knows something's not right, hasn't been right since the ruins, maybe before, maybe that time she came back mangled by Athena's goons, maybe before—something he can't get out of his mind because there's two of them now.

Two people he loves and needs to protect.

The only way he can keep from having a breakdown is to ignore the fear until he needs to. It's the same with her stunted movements, how his touches are now unwanted. He's pretty sure it's more than just pregnancy hormones, because when they were at the farmhouse—before the pair of Jacksons dropped by unannounced—when it was just them, a dozen jars of homemade ketchup, an acre or more of dusty fields, and six feral cats, they couldn't keep their hands off each other.

The black screen lightens to grays and whites visualizing a tight dark space, then highlights etch together, scratches on the screen as Lam drags the wand over Vala's stomach and there's a big head, and the outline of a nose.

The baby's hand twitches—just as hers did.

He stops breathing.

He just forgets to breathe, because in his years of being a pilot, in his years of walking through that gate, he's never seen anything so breathtaking.

"This isn't my forte," Lam reminds, scrolling the wand down, and pressing a bit harder until the image solidifies. She taps a key on the machine to keep the image in place. "There's the head, the arms, the legs."

"Yeah. Yeah." He nods, not hearing her words as he leans forward, Vala's hand still captured in his own.

"Do you want to know the sex?"

He does and he doesn't.

He's stuck in a place of not caring and one of needing to know so they can better prepare. But he's not the one doing all the hard work—sure, he's worrying himself into early retirement, but he doesn't have the nausea, the night sweats, the lucid dreams, the extra weight—so he sits back in his chair, waiting for her to say anything, slowly realizing she hasn't even spoken yet.

Her eyelids flutter in a stifled—then pronounced—blink as she holds back tears—not many but enough to be noticeable. "No." She shakes her head, using her free hand to swipe at her eye. "Not now."

Ambles with her down the hall, they're going to be late for their appointment, but the ultrasound ran long. Lam was nice enough to print him out a glossy photo, and he holds it in his hand like he's holding gold.

Holds it because she won't let him hold her hand.

Is aware that Lam has cleared her for almost everything medically—that her body is in perfect health, even with the beach ball she looks like she's smuggling everywhere—and when he stares at her, waddling, losing her balance a bit, trying to navigate around tight corners and narrow hallways, he's so enamored with her, so absolutely in love with her, and she used to feel the same way—that's why he knows something is off.

Won't let him touch her—not only kissing, or hugging, but sleeping together in the same bed is out of the question. Holding her hand, sitting to close to her, all of it makes her tense up, dart her eyes away, fidget nervously, until he scoots back.

Dealt with it when she came back run through the ringer by Athena and her goons. Was patient with her, realized that just because he was aching—on more than one level—at their time apart, at her bluntly telling him to just leave her alone—that he had no idea what she was going through.

Well, he kind of does—thought he did—but he only crashed a plane into the ice.

Only—because that plane and that ice are long gone despite the pain it brings him when he stands or sits for too long. A stiff, burrowing ache that he sometimes needs a little more than an aspirin for. Still has bad dreams where he's free falling, where the air cuts straight from his lungs because of a broken back and ribs, but when he wakes, he knows that he's safe in his bed.

She can't say the same.

Athena—those men—whoever—are still out there.

She doesn't have the comfort of being able to brush off her fear, and he thinks it culminates, that it grows when she's immobile in that farmhouse because it would only take greasing the right hands to find her—would only take hacking a SGC database—so she doesn't sleep, sometimes doesn't eat, and when he reaches for her, to help her, she flinches and he has to accept that it's not a strike against his character, but trauma she's not ready to deal with yet.

But, man, does he ever wish she would let him stay in her room, because he worries too—she slipped so easily through the gate last time, and he didn't even get a chance to follow. She came back because she loves him, trusts him, and what if that's changed?

"You still craving ketchup?" Speaks to break the silence. When they knew each other so well before, knew programmed responses—what would make her laugh, what would make her upset, what would turn her on—now he's making small talk because he's pretty sure it's the only thing that won't send her running.

"Yes." It's poignant, curt, and he figures it's all he's going to get out of her before they get to their couples therapy appointment—offered up at no additional cost from the good folks at the SGC for thoroughly fucking up their lives and their relationship—even if they weren't meant to have it in the first place.

But she adds, "and chocolate milk."

"Oh yeah?"

"It has to be made with syrup though."

"Got a favorite?"

"I don't know the brand—it's in an unadorned bottle in the commissary."

They round the corner and he waits for her to waddle on ahead first, his stomach flipping, so full of pride at how well she's recovered, so in love with her body and their baby and just her. He stuffs his hands into his pockets, so he doesn't touch her when he wants to—when he needs to—because she needs him not to.

"I'll ask around for you."

"It's not that important, Cameron."

When he stops walking, she slows, and then turns back to view him from her spot a few feet ahead of him. Her bangs are getting long—he used to help her cut them—long enough to tuck behind her ear, and her hair is thick, shiny, swaying over her back in a ponytail. She has her hand laid casually over her stomach, like it's natural to her now, and he hopes to God it is.

"What you want is always important, Princess."

Wants just a small smile, but she doesn't.

Just turns and keeps walking.

* * *

"Why don't we ever go anywhere?" Asks him from the bedroom while he's leaning over the counter trying to shave as quickly as he can.

It was about a year into their relationship after a mission that left him terrified because she didn't come back on time. Sam and Teal'c did, but she had to play the big hero, shoot her gun up to distract from their position, and go running through the jungle.

Came back last night with these big clunkers of handcuffs on and her BDU pants turned into booty shorts that he wasn't complaining about, but he couldn't really even get into them because his heart has never palpitated like that before. He's never been that worried about a single person before, and he knows what that means for him.

Knows what it means for their relationship.

"We go enough places," hollers back, wiping the fog from the mirror with one of the bath towels he left crumpled on the ground. At some point during their two-day leave for 'international' purposes—mainly getting Vala associated with Earth customs so at some point in the future she can be allowed off reins and out by herself—they're gonna need to do laundry.

"We don't go many places—"

Groans, distancing himself from her rant.

They can't really go many places other than the grocery store or the park, or people are gonna start thinking they're dating. Sure, it's not fair to her, but they're gonna have to take it slow to keep under the radar.

But suddenly she's quiet, and he knows how she gets when she's unhappy—when the conversation takes a turn towards a subject she doesn't necessarily want to talk about—but she also does it to get her own way, plays sad to make him cave on things.

"Vala, Honey—" rinses his razor off under the tap, shaking it clean before snatching a towel and wiping the extra shaving cream off his face. "Don't start with this again."

Catches her in the smudge of reflection clear from fog, sitting on his bed with his navy-blue sheet wrapped around her. "Start with what again?"

Grabbing the soaked towel, he cleans out the basin of the sink. "You know exactly what I'm talking about."

In the last year since they've been intimate, he's learned that she doesn't clean up much after herself, unless it's laundry off the ground. She hates the sight of dirty clothes—sweatpants he used for jogging, balled up socks he missed the hamper with, his dirty boxers abandoned on the bedroom and bathroom floor.

She'll give him shit—like they were seriously dating—and the more he thinks on it, the more they are. He sort of falls into a snit when she isn't around, when she goes off with SG-1 crusading through the universe and he's stuck at a desk running schematics and planning plays. A player too old for the game—with one too many injuries—forced to coach from the bench and he hates it for that reason.

He can't help.

Can't keep an eye on her.

But he's also jealous, because despite however many years she has on him, however many stints she did in a sarcophagus, she's still active—and he's not.

There's a lot that he has to adjust too, a lot he has to figure out, a lot he has to balance.

Even though he has genuine feelings for Vala, and he allowed himself some time with her to figure it out, from the very first time he kissed her, he gave himself an ultimatum—if it didn't feel real after a year, then he should end it.

They just passed the year mark and while he doesn't want to break up with her because he enjoys her company and the no strings attached relationship they're in, he really doesn't feel anything between them could flourish and last.

Not with his jealousy.

Not with her history of manipulation.

When she doesn't respond to him, he sighs, and wipes up the water she got between the tiles during her shower—he swears she doesn't know how to pull the curtain all the way closed. "The thing you do where you use emotions, played up emotions, to get what you want out of someone."

The only thing he hears from the other room is the CNN newscaster updating on global political positions.

None of the towels in the bathroom are dry, so he collects them—has to put in a load of laundry, otherwise there won't be any clean towels.

"Vala, I mean, come on—You do it to Jackson all the time."

She doesn't answer again, and his irritation starts to retreat a bit, instead causing him to feel guilty. He may have been too harsh with what he was saying.

He sighs again, lighter, just to catch his bearings and if he's gonna apologize for acting like an asshole, he should probably do it to her face.

"Look—" he rounds the corner to the bedroom but finds it empty. The sheet shoved to the bottom of the bed, and a sea of wrinkles where she was sitting in the middle watching TV. She hates CNN because she doesn't like the news, hates the ticker and how fast and aggressive everything is, but it's sort of his job to know about the news, so when he gets up in the morning, he always has it on in the background to keep him company.

He's still getting used to bringing her here and her being his company.

"Vala?" Steps further into the room and notices the pile of clothes she left on the chair in the corner is gone. "Shit."

She probably got upset at what he said, collected her clothes and bolted.

Their first few times together on base, he always woke up to find her gone from his bed. No note or anything. It hadn't made him feel the greatest, but maybe, despite the mutual feelings he knew they had for each other, maybe this is all it was to her.

Maybe he should call it.

The front door opens and closes.

Vala still doesn't understand a lot of the ways things on Earth work. She doesn't understand that there are worse people out here than they encountered on PX3-whatever, and even though he did have some conflicting feelings, he doesn't want her to get hurt, especially because of him.

So, he yanks on the gray sweats he abandoned in the washroom after his jog an hour ago, pulls on the hoodie from behind his door, grabs his keys where he keeps them on the dresser, taking off for the front door.

"Are you going for another jog?" She pokes her head from around the corner, the little pantry-type closet where he keeps his washer and dryer.

That stops him, one hand on the front door and the other crushing his keys to his palm. "Vala, what the hell are you doing?"

"You said we'd need to do laundry at some point today—so I thought I'd help." The sound of the water as it fills the machine backing her voice a bit.

He approaches her, partly because he doesn't understand what the fuck just happened, and partly because he also doesn't understand how it made him feel. Relief, not that she didn't hear the mean things he might have said, but that she is still here, still safe.

"As much as I enjoy laying around in your bed all day—" she holds out her arms to him, and he slings his around her waist, tugging her to him so she leans her cheek against his chest "—we only have a limited time together, and I think we should use it accordingly."

He kisses her temple lightly, now knowing that he wants this, that the relief he felt means something. That he wants to stay with her as long as she'll let him. That an ultimatum that he made a year ago doesn't matter. "You wanna go out for dinner tonight?"

* * *

The counselling goes exactly how it always does, with him expressing all the worries he has, talking about how he feels, explaining to her that nothing that happened was her fault and that he doesn't blame her, and her responding with nothing but silence to his words—to the therapists questions—this is their third session, and it's always the same.

He doesn't know what to do.

Knows that she's stubborn as all hell, and that he's usually the one who has to cave in order to end the fight, but he also knows that he's prone to overcompensating, especially when it comes to her.

The therapist—a woman he's never met before, someone the SGC hired after both of them hightailed it from Earth—is more confident in getting Vala to open up, but she never will, not with someone she doesn't know, someone she doesn't trust, not when she's coerced—not when she's forced.

They exit the therapist's office into a near empty hallway because it's lunch time, so everyone's either in the mess or still on shift. Wants to ask her if she wants to go grab a chocolate milk with him, talk about whatever she wants to talk about—uncoerced—just so he can hear her voice, but the last three days, the last three therapy sessions have him beat and he feels like wallowing by himself in his room while he still has it.

Doesn't bother looking at her, or saying goodbye, or waiting for her to take off in whatever direction she chooses.

Just sighs and walks away.


End file.
